The Mosaic - by Deborah Kelly (Hardcover)

About the Book

When Frankies parents separate, it feels like her world has broken apart but what if the pieces can be rearranged into something beautiful? Expressively illustrated and sensitively written, The Mosaic is a story about family separation that provides young readers with not just resilience but hope, showing them the good that can come from change.

Book Synopsis

Frankie discovers that beautiful things can be made from broken pieces, in this sensitive and hopeful story about family separation.
One day, Mums vase breaks, and everything changes. All of a sudden, Frankies Dad doesnt live at home anymore, and Nana has come to stay for a while. Frankies life has broken apart just like the vase, and she feels upset and lost. Then Nana has an idea

Full of expressive, colourful illustrations, The Mosaic is an optimistic story about parental separation and the healing power of art. Little readers will delight in following Nana and Frankie as they go on an adventure and find an unexpected source of hope and inspiration. They will see that while some changes can feel sad and overwhelming at first, they can also lead to happiness if we know where to look.

Children all over the world are impacted by parental divorce and separation. The Mosaic offers a fresh perspective, focussing on the good that can come from change and giving children comfort in a time of grief and uncertainty. Inspired by the authors conversations with her own children, it is a uniquely personal story that will help any children going through difficult changes to find hope, resilience and joy.

Review Quotes

"Children all over the world are impacted by parental divorce and
separation. The Mosaic offers a fresh perspective, focusing on
the good that can come from change and giving children comfort in a time of
grief and uncertainty."- Midwest Book Review

"This is a gentle story
with a strong message of resilience, hope and love. Beautifully illustrated
with each character's expressions conveying changing emotions from sadness to
wonder to optimism."
-Reading Time

"The gentle and colourful illustrations pair beautifully with the
child-centred text. It deals with parental separation in a way that is
comforting, and encourages resilience and positivity in such difficult
situations.."
-Get Kids Booked -via Instagram

"This is a
sensitive, original story that offers (readers) hope as they come to
realise that while things are shattered, they can be put back together again,
although it will be a new thing and it will take time for the arrangement to
work out and the glue to dry"
- The Bottom Self

"Use it not only with someone going through family
separations and divorce, but also through other changes, like moves, an
illness, a new job. Check out this hope-filled newcomer; I think it'll capture
your heart like it has mine."
- The Corner on Character, blog review

"Addresses family dynamics, coping with change, and of course creativity
and art. Finding the beauty of life within its wrappings of discomfort and
discord is not easy for the best of us, let alone children grappling with
disruptions to their normal. The Mosaic helps us find and
appreciate that beauty in a myriad of joy-filled ways.."
- Kids' Book Review

"Deb has taken this very delicate topic of separation or divorce and
written a beautiful, poignant, and hopeful story/ Nicky has layered it with her
gorgeous illustrations. The whole thing just speaks to healing and finding a
new normal and the beauty that can come from change"
- Middle Grade Mavens podcast

"Deborah Kelly's moving metaphor comparing a shattered family to a
mosaic will bring comfort to children aged four to eight who are coming to
terms with parental separation. The Mosaic reassures readers that
every family is perfect in its own way - even if the people have been
rearranged into a new reality. Sometimes, when a fractured life imitates art,
something precious is created with the pieces."
- Buzz Words Magazine

"This is an important, powerful book and vital tool to explain
separation to young children."

-Kat BookWorm (via Instagram)

"In a picture book with winsome art,
the narrative sensitively portrays family troubles as they impact a young
child. The illustrations acknowledge Frankie's father's departure, but the
story revolves around her reactions to the broken vase, her memories of happy
times with family members, and her growing recognition that what initially
seems sad might become a reliable, reassuring new normal."
- Booklist

"The Mosaic explores
emotional resilience and connects it to the power that art has to express and
make sense of our world and ultimately bring about healing."
-

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