Because I Already Loved You

Ooof. Here is a necessary and artful picture book. Of course, as with many necessary stories, it is hard to read. It is also vivid; it is also beautiful. Cyr’s work clearly springs from an understanding of a young child’s point of view on one of life’s largest chasms: loss. Delaporte’s artwork, done in watercolor and pencil, has a scratchy, yet saturated, quality that mimics life so well.

The story takes readers through a young brother-to-be’s journey of waiting, and ultimately losing, a sibling. The family suffers a stillbirth, and the sibling the child has been anticipating does not come home. Through Cyr and Delaporte’s combined gentle lens, readers see a child grappling with questions of eternity, loss, pain and, ultimately, joy. “Yesterday, we laughed together for the first time in a long time. I wished that you could have been there” expresses the narrator. A child’s take on the incomprehensibility of loss, and human perseverance toward joy, was utterly moving to me. I applaud this story for never straying from a child’s experience of pain.

While perhaps not every bookshelf needs Because I Already Loved You, I recommend it highly. Children who do need this story will likely feel so heard by its pages. Bravo.