How can I not forget my mother?

When my mother passed away, everything changed.

But I find my mother's scent, I hear my mother's voice,
I always want to keep it.
It's like my mom is always by my side.
How can I not forget my mother?

The main character of this book, a little boy, suddenly loses his beloved mother one day.
For children of that age, a mother is a strong fence that protects them from all the fears and difficulties of the world, a generous embrace that embraces them with warm love, and at the same time, life itself is everything.
But one day, this mother suddenly passed away and went to heaven.
How can a child overcome the pain of separation, which is difficult even for adults to bear?

“Right here, right in the corner? Mom is right here.”

As we go through life, we often experience situations where we are forced to part ways with someone we love.
When we can no longer see the person who was always by our side, laughing and crying with us, we all feel a great sense of despair and loss.
In particular, the pain of leaving a family with whom you have always lived in close proximity is a greater wound than any other separation.
It would be an even greater shock for children who are not yet emotionally mature.
But it is also an undeniable fact that death is a part of our lives that we all must experience.
This means that rather than unconditionally avoiding death and separation, which we will experience at least once in our lives, we need to be prepared to accept them naturally.


This book calmly depicts the somewhat shocking and heavy (and scary and horrifying from a child's perspective) story of 'mother's death' through the eyes of a child.
The author avoids flashy decorations or explanations, and instead uses language that is as restrained and concise as possible to express the child's psychological state with surprising sensitivity, as if observing it from the side through a camera lens.


At first, he is angry and in denial about his mother's death, but that gradually changes into a longing and obsession for her. However, through conversations with his grandmother, he realizes that his mother is always alive in his heart, and the process of overcoming that wound and growing on his own is vividly portrayed like a panorama through the symbolic image of a 'kneecap.'
Here, 'kneecap' signifies a wound deep in the child's heart (If you were going to leave so quickly, why didn't you give birth to me? Why did you give birth to me?) and also signifies the healing of that wound (smooth new skin grew.
(The scab fell off on its own without me knowing.)


In this book, the mother's death is not dark.
Because death is not the end.
A mother who has left her child's side cannot be seen with the eyes, but when you close your eyes and think of her, she still lives in the child's heart.
Anyone who sees a child overcome their mother's death and grow up will feel a heartbreaking sense of affection.
You'll want to gently hold the hand of a child who hesitated whether to cry or not, but said he didn't cry.

A heartwarming yet sad picture book

Olivier Talec, acclaimed as one of the most capable writers, is one of those stubborn writers who chooses his own texts to work freely.
Drawing on his experience drawing for various media, including advertisements, animation, and newspapers, he is fully displaying his unique individuality here as well.


Although the picture book deals with the serious subject of 'death', the soft colors and emotional illustrations that seem to seep into your heart, combined with the heartwarming story, leave you feeling a bit sad when you close the book.
The pencil lines, which have a rough feel as if drawn by a child, also express situations that are sad, heartbreaking, and bring tears to the eyes.
The skill of adding color to slightly reveal the pencil sketch also makes it look more sophisticated and friendly the more you look at it.
The intense red color that dominates the entire book also symbolizes the mother's death, while at the same time warmly expressing the process of the child overcoming his wounds.