You know what they say: Never judge a book by its cover. Well, I decided to read The Day My Mother Left, by James Prosek, because I loved the cover. It pictures two birds, a scarlet tanager and a yellow warbler. The carefully rendered drawings were clearly done by a kid--James Prosek himself, it turns out, when he was 10 or 11 years old.

I really like birds, but in this book, I found something better--a wonderful, sad, very real story about a boy. (I like boys, too.) This is a novel, but it is based on the author's own life. It’s about this kid named Jeremy, whose mother leaves his father, his teenage sister, and him when he is 9. Having your mom walk out on your family without warning is hard enough, but Jeremy's mom runs off with the father of his most hated enemy, the 5th grade bully. In the sickening weeks and months that follow, Jeremy waits for his mother to return, but she doesn't. He waits for a phone call, or a letter; a birthday present or a Christmas present. Nothing.

Jeremy's dad is totally absorbed in his own depression. Jeremy's sister stays away from home as much as possible. In his aloneness, the boy turns to the solace of nature, where he finds his own strengths and a talent for drawing.

This is not a sappy book, there's no blubbering self-pity or tiresome angst. The prose is clean and honest, and the illustrations--etchings of birds, both alive and dead--have the same qualities. This is a story about the terrible things that parents sometimes do to the children they love; and the amazing resilience that kids can show in spite of it all. It's a really good story. I give it 3 and a half WORDs out of 4.

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