Dark Cloud

Anna Lazowski has been writing picture books since sixth grade, and her experience shows in Dark Cloud, a beautiful piece of children’s literature focused on a little girl, Abigail, and her experience of depression. Choosing to address clinical depression in a picture book is a brave choice that Lazowski accomplishes with her delicate words accompanied by Penny Neville-Lee’s beautiful illustrations.

Lazowski’s choice of words throughout Dark Cloud is simple but assertive, “personifying” Abigail’s depression in varied ways that communicate the feeling for children who don’t experience it, with expressions such as a “dark cloud,” a “swirl of fog,” and a “long shadow” that follows Abigail all the time. To complement the story, the author provides a note at the book’s conclusion in which she presents her reasons for creating a picture book on such a delicate topic, and she also provides resources for children who feel depressed or recognize that “dark cloud” following an adult in their lives.
How you talk about depression to children matters, and important choices were made so that the feeling of being depressed is extremely present and recognizable in Dark Cloud without its being too forward and scaring the child reader. As mentioned previously, the choice of words to describe how Abigail visualizes her depression is precise on this task, but, from the end sheets to the pages of the book, the use of colour is the main tool conveying this feeling, and, in my opinion, the star of the show.

Rendered in pencil and India ink and then assembled and coloured digitally on Procreate, the illustrations in Dark Cloud do a masterful job of portraying the feeling of being depressed. Through the use of colour, illustrator Penny Neville-Lee is able to depict the fading of emotions that comes with clinical depression, when the world feels washed over by gray and the colours seem faint and lost. However, when Abigail finds moments of happiness, readers see the colour back in her life, bright and vivid. This move from completely gray to colourful is also present in the end sheets, with the front one being gray and the end one being full of colour. Choosing to mix some gray in colourful pages and some colour in gray pages was also a sensible decision by the illustrator, showing the child reader that battling depression is a constant thing in the lives of people that deal with it, and, even when not overpowering, the feeling might not go away completely in moments of colour.

Recognizing and understanding depression can be hard, and Lazowski and Neville-Lee don’t shy away from the challenge, giving the readers an important toolset they will be able to use for life. I feel lucky to live in a time where we can find such sensible children’s books portraying the reality of mental illness and going beyond, giving hope to the child readers that “dark clouds” can be managed and that more colourful days will come.