“Mom’s Sweater” by Jayde Perkin

“Mom’s Sweater” is a sensitive story about a young girl who loses her mother to a terminal disease. Through a comfort object, her mother’s favorite sweater, the protagonist is able to better understand grief and find her way to healing.

Perkins begins with the hospital scene where the main character and her father say goodbye to her mother. The mood is somber, and Perkin’s primary color palette give the book a timeless feel.

The next day, the girl and her father receive a call that her mother is gone, to which the girl replies, “Gone where?” The pages then cover the flurry of events that follow the death of a family member: condolences, flowers, the funeral, more flowers, more sympathy, and whispers the girl overhears. Though the girl can acknowledge that all her friends and teachers are being especially nice, she continues to feel sad.

This feeling, her father explains, is grief. The girl wonders how her mother could leave so much behind, even her favorite red sweater. She then begins wearing her mom’s sweater in order to feel close to her. The healing begins as the girl recognizes that though the sweater smells like her mom at first, eventually, it smells like her. And then her father washes it, so it just smells clean.

Through this transformation of the sweater, the reader understands that the girl is taking ownership of the beloved clothing and it can continue to give her comfort though it no longer holds her mother’s smell. The girl’s father is also able to walk his daughter through the concept of grief further by explaining, “The sweater stays the same size, but [she] will eventually grow into it.”

By looking at grief as what feels like a huge piece of clothing that is too big for the mourner to wear, Perkin’s beautiful book lets children (and adults) know that though grief feels huge in the early stages of losing someone, we (and our world) gets bigger as time goes on, so though the grief remains, it fits us better.

“Mom’s Sweater” can be purchased wherever books are sold, or on Amazon.