This story of a little girl who opened her heart to the many possibilties in the world and she shared them with her grandfather. Thoughts about life and the stars, the wonders of the sea, she loved finding new things. As she got older and her grandfather passed on she decided she wanted to guard her heart to keep it safe. She bottled it up and forgot about all the possibilities she was curious about. Until one day there was little girl who had the curiousities as her. She then decided that she didn't want to keep her heart bottled any longer and tried to get it out but the bottle wouldn't break. The little girl helps her open her heart again to everyhthing in the world. Great for boys or girlsGreat for Kindergarden to 2nd grade New favorite book when it comes to dealing with loss.This coming-of-age tale follows a young girl from young childhood through adulthood as she struggles with the overwhelming loss of a male father figure in her life. In simple terms and using the metaphor of putting your heart away in a bottle which she then ties around her neck, Jeffers’s story illustrates how curiosity and learning can revive even the most difficult of losses. With simple mixed media illustrations using paint and colored pencil (among other less prominent medias), Oliver Jeffers once again manages to reflect profound emotion and growth through the slightest arch of the line of a character’s mouth, for example. Unlike This Moose Belongs to Me, which makes use of traditional paintings as a background to the plot and The Day the Crayons Quit, which uses a distinctively minimalist approach, The Heart and the Bottle puts its characters first. This approach of putting the two characters in full backgrounds that highlight the girl’s movements is just one of the ways Jeffers approaches such a delicate subject matter with respect. In the end, readers who have experienced the loss of someone they love will benefit from this book along with anyone who has ever “put their heart away” as the girl in the story has. Although it is not as eye-catching as some of Jeffers’s other works, The Heart and the Bottle has the potential to reach a wide audience should adults of influence in children’s lives choose to broach such a difficult topic.
What do You think about O Coração E A Garrafa (2010)?
This seems a bit like a melancholy picture book for grown ups, but I do love Oliver Jeffers.
—tidwell2161h
Seemingly simple story, bittersweet, curiosity for life needs heart.
—Srichard82
