By Andrew Fusek Peters, Polly Peters
A boy watches the color drain out of his dad's world when depression arrives, and keeps wondering whether he's the reason.
A boy and his dad do everything together, in a world full of color. Then the color starts draining away. Dad stops wanting to go out, sits in the dark, and turns gray along with the room. The boy keeps asking the same question: is this because of me? Dad says no; the boy asks again anyway. Then come a hospital, a doctor, medicine, and someone Dad talks to. It's slow. One day a bit of yellow returns, and then a big hug. Karin Littlewood's paintings do most of the talking, because you watch the color leave and come back.
For a child who's decided a parent's sadness is their fault, this is the one. The boy's question, was it me, gets asked over and over, the way children really ask, not raised once and resolved. It's the only book here about a father, and children with a depressed dad rarely see their own home on a page. It isn't subtle, and the color idea is worked hard, but that plainness is the point.