My brother Otto by Ingrid Laguna

Quinn is not happy with the news that there will be a new baby in her family. The disruption will mean she will have to share a room … and what will happen to her precious lop-eared rabbit who currently lives with her in her space? Quinn is not prepared for the change in her family dynamics at all, and feels the sense of loss of her security. She can throw herself into story writing and cuddles with her rabbit, but she is not really happy. The new baby, Otto, arrives far too early and his life is held by a thread in the hospital NICU, and Quinn and her parents must live with the topsy-turvy uncertainty of the neo-natal life. Will Quinn ever be ready or even able to welcome her brother home and has the tiny baby managed to wrap his finger around her heart? 

This story has the lived-experience heart of the author’s own grief and loss, and anyone who has travelled the route of a premature birth in their family will instantly feel the struggle of this story. Written from the perspective of a child, it carries a naive winsome quality that recognises a child’s emotional responses to a significant family change. There is grief as part of the story, so some children reading this may struggle if they do not have the emotional capacity to deal with the big issues of beginnings and endings in life. The story is moving and my own memories of watching my niece struggle after her very premature arrival were instantly at the forefront for me. Make sure that a young reader in the 8-11 age group has sufficient support if they have their own grief to bear or even if a new baby is expected in their family, but it is a beautiful story with a resonance of love that is quite profound.  This is written for young readers, and it raises big issues - but books are sometimes the best places to help children see that the world is not always ‘rainbows and rabbits’ and stories do not always have a happy ending.

Themes: Grief and loss, Premature birth, Siblings, Emotional growth, Rabbits.

Carolyn Hull