By Benji Davies
A boy sails with his grandad to a warm green island, and Grandad decides to stay — a gentle picture book about a grandparent's death, told entirely through the island.
Syd's grandad lives at the bottom of the garden, and Syd wanders over to see him whenever he wants. One day Grandad isn't in his chair or his shed. Syd finds him up in the attic, next to a little door that was never there before. They open it, and a great rusty ship is waiting, and it carries them off to an island — jungle, a waterfall, orangutans, birds in colors Syd has never seen. They patch up an old shack on stilts. They swim all afternoon. It's the best day of Syd's life. Then Grandad sits him down and says he thinks he'll stay. Syd sails home alone. He goes round to Grandad's house at the bottom of the garden, and it's just the way it always was, except Grandad isn't in it. A while later a letter comes, with a drawing of Grandad on his island, happy.
It hands a young child somewhere to put the feeling before they have any words for it. Syd never cries or explains; he sails home, he finds the empty house, and the pictures carry the rest. Because the island is bright and warm and full of good things, the sad part arrives wrapped in something beautiful, which is about as gentle as this subject gets for a four-year-old. At the very end a letter comes, with a drawing of Grandad on the island looking happy, and for a small child that picture is worth a lot.