Please Come Home: A Child's Book about Divorce (Hurts of Childhood Series)

Please Come Home: A Child's Book about Divorce (Hurts of Childhood Series) Review

Home: A Child's Book about Divorce (Hurts of Childhood Series) (Hardcover) Like all of Doris Sanford's books of her Hurts of Childhood series, this book deals kindly, sensitively, and personally with divorse. The book is about Jenny whose father and mother fight, then her daddy leaves them. Her teddy bear takes on the role of comforter and confidant as she shares her feelings, worries, and desires. What is most wonderful about this book is the way it adresses the feelings that children go through in this situation without preaching, blaming, explaining, and most importantly without a specific timeline. Far too often books seem to indicate to children that they should be over it all in a week or month, whereas this is far from the reality. It also covers many of the situations common to all divorces: mother dating, the child's often love/hate feelings toward their absent parent, the change in finacial status post-divorce, school performance dropping, and the remaining parent spending less time with them. There is also a list of suggestions to parents in the back of the book, one example of which is "tell the child how you feel even if you can't fully explain the feeling. Let him see you cry. Say 'I'll talk about it when I'm able.'" A must for any therapist who deals with children regarding divorce, and extremely helpful for children going through divorce themselves.