Astrid Desbordes’ work, with illustrations by Pauline Martin, is a real emotional dialogue between a mother and a child. Here is the review of Will you always love me, mom?
TITLE: WILL YOU ALWAYS WANT ME, MOM? AUTHOR: ASTRID DESBORDES, PAULINE MARTIN GENRE: ILLUSTRATED BOOK PUBLISHING HOUSE: MARGHERITA EDIZIONI YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2016
Will you always love me, mom? it is aimed at children but winks at the parents, faithfully represented in the essence of the role of the mother. Let’s talk more about it in this review.
The plot | Review “Will you always love me, mom?”: Dialogue and love
Little Ettore, in his bed ready to sleep, asks his mother a simple but profound question: “Will you always love me?”
Listening to his mother’s words, Ettore will discover the nuances of a great love, able to flourish even before what he believed.
Will you always love me? | Review “Will you always love me, mom?”: Dialogue and love
This is the question that contains the meaning of the book, everything is concentrated in these few words and from the answer it is easy to understand how much the story is of twofold prospect. It does not speak only to children but also to adults, leading parents to relive the conflicting feelings related to their figure and children to rediscover the desire for reassurance typical of their age, and beyond.
The words that the author delivers, almost as if they were hers, to our Ettore’s mother reveal a more than illuminating message: a mother’s love is unconditional e constant. And it can also be denoted by the drawings of the illustrator Martin that integrate the hidden meaning behind those words.
Daily situations are depicted, representing everyday life, in an intelligent and fun way. What they emphasize is the contrast between the easy situation, in which it is obvious to say and want to say “I love you” and the more conflictual one, present in everyday life, in which fatigue and unexpected events are king. This confirmed the mother’s unconditional and constant affection.
Forever | Review “Will you always love me, mom?”: Dialogue and love
The “forever” in children occupies a temporary state. When they feel pleasure in a certain thing they wonder if it is possible to prolong that condition indefinitely. They wonder, therefore, if the friend will be present forever, if the mother will sing the lullaby forever, etc etc …
These questions underscore the fear that this condition changes and the will to take those pleasant moments from everyday life and relive them. It happens because the child lives in a semantic mental environment where everything is connected and linked by various conditions. A classic example is punishment or gift. Every child knows that if he did not behave well he could not eat a cake, go out to play etc …
Everything, in their eyes, is related to conditions very precise and logically leads children to suspect that even the good, understood as strength, emotion and feeling, is subject to these restrictions. By clarifying the feeling that the mother feels, has always felt and always will try, the idea that there really is “forever” is strengthened in them and they begin to realize the marked difference between feelings and their manifestations.
Even if you don’t belong to me
The last words of the book are these, spoken between regret and emotion:
“I love you because you are my baby, even though I know you don’t belong to me.”
Yes, because Mom knows that the his baby does not belong to her, she knows he will grow up and will have to let him go. he knows that a parent’s task changes over time, that he will have to prepare him to take off and not stop him from flying. That good will sanction an inevitable detachment with the passing of the years and this awareness enriches the register with a wonderful delicacy.
Astrid overflows
Astrid Desbordes was born in Suresnes, Paris, in 1974. She began writing for adults on the subject of philosophy and only later devoted herself to children’s literature.
