“The Memory Box: A Book About Grief” by Joanna Rowland

“The Memory Box: A Book About Grief,” written by Joanna Rowland and illustrated by Thea Baker, is a short children’s book that tenderly and simply helps the reader connect with their feelings in the wake of loss. The book gently introduces the experience of loss through the narrator, a young girl who loses a balloon. The narrator watches the balloon float away up into the sky until it’s out of sight and gone forever. 

The tone gets more serious as the narrator says: “I was sad. But not as sad as I am now. I can always get another balloon. But I can never have another you.” Whoever the narrator is talking to is never specified, which lends a sense of universality to the “you” addressed. This makes it easy for the reader to turn the “you” into whomever they may have lost: a parent, a friend, a pet or any other beloved being.  

The narrator asks, “What happens to your love, now that it’s gone? Did it die too? Because I’m scared I’ll forget you.” This is when the memory box comes in. The narrator makes a memory box to hold mementos of memories shared with the person she has lost. 

Encouraging children to make memory boxes for a loved one who has died is a simple, dynamic way of engaging their creativity while moving through the grieving process — a helpful and positive method of sitting with challenging feelings by recalling the good times spent with a loved one who is no longer present. For a child who may, like the narrator, be afraid that they will forget their loved one, it can be reassuring to have something tangible to preserve memories. 

“The Memory Box: A Book About Grief” also features the narrator spending time in places that remind them of their loved one and collecting mementos found in those spots.  Encouraging a child to spend time in a physical space they once shared with the person they have lost can be healing. The child can spend time reflecting on the memories while also creating a new memory through the activity of looking for mementos.  

Author Joanna Rowland
Credit: writerrowland.com

The sweet illustrations in this book, artfully done by Thea Baker, show the narrator engaging in new activities, creating the memory box, and surrounded by supportive friends and family. 

“The Memory Box” is a great tool for helping adults start the difficult conversation about grief and loss with young children. I have read a number of children’s picture books about grief and loss that incorporate more complex ideas, using metaphors and broaching some deep philosophical questions about what loss is and what death means. This is not one of those books. This is a book written for children ages 4 to 8 that gives gentle and straightforward advice about how to cope with loss. It briefly touches on the sadness experienced with loss, but doesn’t dwell there. Instead, it focuses on positive healing activities, and does so in a manner that young children can understand. 

“The Memory Box” is a 2017 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award winner; received a Mom’s Choice Award Gold Medal, and was chosen as a finalist for the 2017 Midwest Book Award in the Children’s Picture Books category.