The Circles in the Sky

Speaking to heart and eye in equal measures, a beautiful treatise on remembering life and helping those left behind.

With a light touch and a tone respectful of big, confusing feelings around the concept of death, this warm and matter-of-fact book could be a useful aid in difficult conversations.

Drawn out of his den by strange birdsong, Fox finds a group of crows gathered around a lone bird lying on the ground. In crisp digital spreads, Mountford (The Moonlight Zoo) renders the black bird's claws drawn up awkwardly, its eyes staring at nothing. Not yet understanding death, Fox doesn't know what's wrong; he lacks precise vocabulary for the sun and the moon, too, calling them simply "circles in the sky." A moth who knows more about the natural world's cycles tries to explain death using the nightly disappearance of the sun as a metaphor. "Are you saying Bird will be back tomorrow?!" Fox asks, with hope. Moth backpedals. "JUST TELL ME THE TRUTH," Fox shouts, in a moment of raw emotionality. "Bird is dead," Moth admits. Suddenly, things become clear: "Fox didn't know that word well, but he felt it." In a deeply affecting sequence, the two mourn together. Stylized visual elements--geometric borders that work as hills, circles for heavenly bodies, and seemingly buried skeletons whose faint presence appears alongside the living creatures' own--offer layers of reality echoed by intuitively pitched lines that capture youth's first encounter with death's finality, and with the experience of saying goodbye. Ages 3-7. (Sept.)

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"Mountford does dual duty in giving voice to both the confusion that comes with death and a template on how to be there for those in pain. . . . Speaking to heart and eye in equal measures, a beautiful treatise on remembering life and helping those left behind." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"The stylized illustrations capture this exploration of the tangible and intangible with a graceful beauty, balancing movement and energy against a background of stillness. . . . Visual details emphasize the dance between life and death. . . Mountford lets those visuals speak for themselves, allowing his readers to feel the weight of Fox's emotions and subtly placing Bird's death in the context of all living things. . . .Taken as a whole, this is a poignant, aspirational model of reckoning with death's immediate permanence as well as its unknowability." —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review) 

"Reminiscent of a folktale, this picture book provides a profound exploration of death in nature. . . . Mountford's digital illustrations are geometric, replete with colorful concentric circles and parallel lines in patterns that seem to symbolize order and harmony in the natural world. Students will appreciate this title's gentle wisdom and comfort and may even find it useful for their own healing process of grief." —School Library Connection