Perfect Picture Book Friday/ The Fall of Freddie the Leaf

Hi Friends!

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend! I don’t think Thanksgiving is over do you? Yes, Black Friday started earlier than ever but really aren’t you still in the thankful mode? I am. I just keep feeling so blessed by family and food. I have enough. That is more than so many. I have enough. The reality is I have so much more than enough. My pantry is full. And even though I didn’t have a big meal with family on the same day as everyone else we celebrated last weekend with a wonderful dinner out, with wine and appetizer. It couldn’t have been nicer.

Then yesterday I was looking for a book to do for today and came across this beauty. The Fall of Freddie the Leaf. I wasn’t going to do PPBF this week but at the last-minute changed my mind. That’s why you’ll see two posts today. A Perfect Picture Book Friday post and one I just wanted to do for me. Actually it turned out I was doing both for me. You’ll see.

On Thanksgiving Day in 1991 my late husband lost the use of his legs due to cancer. We found out the following week that it was because the tumors had invaded his thoracic spine and death was imminent. On that day, that Thanksgiving day I didn’t know that then however. Everyone was so nice. I called our Oncologist who recommended I call the local pharmacist who opened his doors for me to buy a urinal. We stayed home till the following Monday when the ambulance took my husband to the hospital for radiation treatments and a seven-day stay while we set up hospice and a hospital bed in the downstairs room, my late husband’s office.

This whole Explanation is the introduction to the following book. It was given to me following his death a month later, December 21, 1991.

Title: The Fall of Freddie the Leaf

Written by: Leo Buscaglia, PhD

A Story of Life for All Ages

Henry Holt and Company, Slack Incorporated, 1982

Resources: http://www.epinions.com/kifm-review-66F6-56ACDEE-3938CF2F-prod5?sb=1 How the book ends with these words “The Beginning” http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/library/famlf2/gt317.pdf of learning to live through loss. http://www.pbs.org/witheyesopen/afterk5.PDF Understanding the cyclical nature of life for ages K through grade 5. Teaching end-of-life issues in the classroom.

Utube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0ZI-Rf1_sk

Themes: grief, seasons, loss, religion, philosophy, reassurance, comfort, relationships, questions, Nature, Interconnectedness, Hope, Concepts, Spirituality,

From the Jacket: This new story by Leo Buscaglia is a warm, wonderfully wise, and strikingly simple story about a leaf named Freddie. How Freddie and  his companion leaves change with the passing seasons, finally falling to the ground with winter’s snow, is an inspiring allegory illustrating the delicate balance between life and death.

Both children and adults will be deeply touched by this inspiring, thought-provoking treatment of so sensitive a facet of true life.

Why I Love it: So you see why I picked this one. It spoke to me this Thanksgiving Day. I hadn’t gotten a special book from the library and went looking here at home for one. The Fall of Freddie the Leaf is a book one can read to the children when one is too overcome by grief to take care of theirs. This was so very true for me.

In fact it is “dedicated to all children who have ever suffered a permanent loss, and to the grownups who could not find a way to explain it.” I think I did a wrong to my boys by being cheerful on the way to school and then coming home to cry. I would wonder if they saw through my fake cheery mood.  Instead now, years later I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to be honest and talk to them about my feelings of sadness. I’m sure they were feeling sad too.

And that was years ago. Two decades ago.  I am now happily married to wonderful man, a gift really, for going on 15 years. Something to be exceptionally grateful for.

What about you? What are you most grateful for?

To see a complete listing of all the Perfect Picture Books with resources, please visit author Susanna

Cover of The Fall of Freddie the Leaf

Leonard Hill’s Perfect Picture Books.  Or click on the Perfect Picture Book Fridays  badge in the right sidebar.