Blog Archives
Burned Butter Island
Burned Butter Island follows a lonely boy who lives with his father, a grey cat, and a white duck on a small Baltic island where the lighthouse stands watch over wind and sea. The boy, still grieving his mother, wanders through forests filled with foxes and white deer, bakes blackberry tarts, reads old books, listens to storms, and discovers the strange magic of a narwhal’s tusk. When a violent storm pulls him into the ocean, a real narwhal saves him, guiding him back to shore and back to hope. The book blends poetry, fable, memory, and gentle magic into a tale about loss, wonder, and the courage to live again.
The language is simple, yet it carries an emotional weight that sneaks up on you. Scenes drift from soft domestic moments to wild visions of storms and enchanted creatures. I found myself slowing down because the rhythm feels like someone humming by the fire. I loved the poems sprinkled throughout. They felt warm, handmade, and a little fragile. Sometimes the narrative jumps between moments and I had to catch up. It felt like listening to someone who speaks from the heart and lets the story wander where it wants to go.
What I liked most was how honestly the book speaks about sadness. The boy’s grief shows up in tiny gestures, in memories of his mother’s lullabies, in the way he stares at the tusk as if it holds the answer to something he cannot name. I felt a lump in my throat when he read the message on the rocking horse. The moment he sees that love does not vanish, and that sadness does not have to swallow him whole, felt tender and real. The author writes about loneliness without heavy words and lets magic offer comfort instead of escape. I liked that a lot.
I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy gentle stories that glow from the inside. It is perfect for people who love fairy tales, lyrical writing, and small moments that carry big feelings. It would also comfort anyone who has walked through grief and wants a reminder that joy can return in unexpected ways.
Pages: 20 | ASIN : B0FXHLFGS8
We Are Not Promised Tomorrow
The Long, Lazy Summer follows a young boy who spends one last summer with his terminally ill mother, which deepens into lessons about love, loss, and the beauty of small moments. What made you write a story about this topic? Anything pulled from your life experiences?
Most of the children books I write are fiction fantasy with a lot of humor. The last few years, I’ve watched the Newbery Awards, and the books that won usually have a more serious tone to them. That really is the main reason I tackled this subject matter. I’ve had friends and family who have died of cancer, so that’s mainly why I focused on this area.
Surprisingly, real life ended up imitating art. My illustrator ended up finding out she had cancer when I was ready to start this book. She’s fine now, but this book almost didn’t happen. Then I faced my own mortality as well when I had heart problems this year. The ending of the book reflects the kind of thoughts running through my head at that time period.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
The main ideas that were important to me were:
- Honesty of emotion. How would any adult feel going through that – facing their mortality and how do you explain that to a child?
- Love – what do we leave our loved ones after we are gone?
- Legacy – if you have a limited time left, what would be important to still do before you go? What do you want to be remembered for?
What is one thing that you hope readers take away from your story?
None of us are promised tomorrow. Look around you – are you living the life you truly wish to live? What do you think your loved ones will remember as being the most important part of your life?
I hope the Wonders of Childhood & Beyond series continues in other books. If so, where will the story take readers?
This series is intended to be unusual and perhaps unexpected. If the reader can learn to look at the world in a way different than they have before, then I will have done my job well as a writer.
Author Links: GoodReads | X | Instagram | Facebook | Website
For some of us, the greatest love and memories that we will hold in our hearts our whole lives through are the ones we experience and share with our parents.
They are part of our earliest memories and shape the lives we learn to live. They are our whole world, and when they leave us – when they pass over to the other side where pain and death can no longer touch us, we are left with an emptiness we can never again fill. To lose a parent is like losing a limb – you remember it being an essential part of your life even though it is no longer there. In many ways, you can still feel their spirits nearby, but they have moved beyond this realm where our five senses reign supreme and register into other senses of extraordinary perception we never knew we had.
For Raymond, it’s simple. He spends a beautifully long, lazy summer with his mother that he will never forget. His last one with her.
Nobody is promised forever. Any of us could leave this world at any moment. That being the case, what kind of memories would you leave your loved ones if you had a choice?
The Long, Lazy Summer (Wonders of Childhood & Beyond)
The Long, Lazy Summer is a tender and heart-tugging children’s book told through the eyes of a young boy named Ray, who spends one last summer with his terminally ill mother. What begins as a string of playful, simple days filled with scavenger hunts, zoo games, gardening, and homemade forts slowly deepens into lessons about love, loss, and the beauty of small moments. The narrative captures both the joy of being loved and the ache of knowing that time is running out. The season ends with the mother’s passing, but Ray carries her words, memories, and love into adulthood, forever changed by that golden stretch of days.
The writing is warm and straightforward, but the emotions beneath it are rich and deep. I could feel the sunshine in the happy scenes and the heaviness in the quiet ones. What I loved most was how the story balanced light and shadow. It never wallowed in sadness, but it didn’t shy away from it either. The metaphors, like sunflowers and butterflies, weren’t just pretty images; they stuck with me. And there’s something about the way Sayre writes dialogue between mother and son that’s simple, but the love comes through so strongly.
This is not a picture book you can read with dry eyes. The pacing lingers in places, and at first I thought it might be too gentle for my taste, but that rhythm fits the story’s heart. This isn’t about rushing to a twist or a big finale. It’s about letting each moment breathe, like the last summer evening before school starts again. The ideas like living fully, making memories, carrying love beyond loss aren’t new, but the way they’re told here feels fresh because they come through a child’s eyes. That innocence turns the whole thing into a bittersweet reminder of how fragile and beautiful life is.
I’d recommend The Long, Lazy Summer to parents, grandparents, teachers, and anyone who believes in the power of stories to start conversations about love and loss. It’s especially good for families looking to help children process grief in a gentle way. It’s also for grown-ups who need a reminder that even in goodbye, there’s a kind of forever.
Pages: 113 | ASIN : B0FG23Y128
How Do We Live With Our Mortality?
Into the Wind follows a young boy who, while fixing up a sailboat, befriends his elderly neighbor. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
When I was a boy, I had a feisty, independent, widowed and elderly aunt who was an artist and loved sailing. As she aged, she didn’t seem to mellow or retire or relax, but seemed to come even more alive, to throw herself with increasing energy at what she loved, even as that became more difficult. She painted with a trembling, arthritic hand. Some weeks before she died, she managed—in a wheelchair!—to get herself into a small boat and, with the help of someone who held the rudder, sail through some rough weather. That was the germ of Into the Wind.
Was there anything from your own life that you incorporated into Rusty’s and Hazel’s relationship?
Yes. There is a certain amount of my relationship with my aunt in Rusty’s relationship with Hazel. Like Hazel, my aunt was odd and demanding—you might even say cantankerous. We rubbed each other the wrong way. But she took an interest in me, and slowly I took an interest in her and came to appreciate her quirky sense of humor, the challenges she faced and the wisdom she had as an aging woman who mostly got around in a wheelchair. We became unlikely friends.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The main theme was intergeneration friendship. How could that happen between a boy with his life ahead of him and a woman near the end of hers? What might connect them? What might each of them gain from that connection?
Our mortality is another theme, something that children from eight to twelve are beginning to grapple with. By then they may have lost a loved pet or, worse, a relative. How do we think about that? How do we live with our mortality? Maybe Hazel shows Rusty a way. Sadly, life comes to an end, but it can be filled, like Hazel’s, with curiosity, fun, humor, generosity, growth, energy, friendship, love, wonder, and meaning—all of which might be passed from one generation to another. I hope that’s what readers feel and understand when they finish Into the Wind.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I write books for children and adults, and I’m usually working one or the other, or sometimes both. At the moment, I have an adult nonfiction draft on my screen and parts of a children’s story in a folder on the side of my desk. When might they be available? I don’t know, as I haven’t finished them yet. Sometime soon. Fingers crossed. Information about my previous books is available on my website.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Into the Wind
Into the Wind by William Loizeaux is a children’s story about how an unlikely friendship develops between a young boy and an older woman in a wheelchair. It takes place during a difficult summer for both on the island where they live. After Rusty’s mother is admitted to an inpatient treatment facility on the mainland for depression, Rusty’s neighbor gives him an old sailboat that he works on repairing and learning how to sail. Hazel is a widow whose family lives far away on the west coast, and she hires Rusty to do odd jobs around the house for her to earn a bit of money. As they spend time together, the two find that they share an unexpected connection.
The author has an engaging writing style that will draw readers into the story. The main character is relatable and believable, with a sometimes humorous point of view. This heartwarming story takes place on an island, and the author’s descriptions of the boats and water paint a vivid picture of the quaint tourist town where Rusty and his family lived. I could easily imagine the smell of the sea and the sound of the seagulls as they flew over the boats tied to the dock as though I was experiencing what Rusty did in the story.
I learned a lot of interesting things about sailing while reading this book, and I liked that various sailing terms were explained organically throughout the story for readers who are not familiar with sailboats. The author also includes a glossary of nautical terms at the end of the book. Watching the friendship between Rusty and Hazel is magical. Two people so different, in different stages of life, can find common ground and connect on a deep emotional level. They are both going through some challenging moments in their lives, and spending time with each other helped them cope.
This memorable book includes illustrations by Laura Jacobsen. They are done in shades of gray, like pencil drawings. They really add to the story as they are sparsely used and added to key moments in the story. My favorite was the image of Rusty pushing Hazel through the park with cards clipped to her wheelchair wheels. The innocence and simplicity of the scene remind readers to hold onto the small moments in life.
Into the Wind is a middle grades level chapter book. This emotional story deals with friendship, compassion, death, and grief. It is a wonderful story to help kids learn about love and loss and about the importance of treasuring the moments you have with people.
Pages: 138 | ASIN : B08PDGZRXS
LITERARY TITAN 