Beads for Daddy
Sonja’s daddy is in prison. Why is that?
Kabusa Böcker 2008
ISBN 978 91 7355 080 2
“When is daddy coming home?” asked Sonja for the hundred millionth time.
“When the time is up,” answered Mummy again.
Sonja thinks, Sonja wonders. She has one more question, but it is so hard to ask. It’s the why, why did daddy go away.
What was it that happened – and what went so wrong?
Sonja’s daddy is away, it feels like he wont be able to come home again for a thousand years. She waits and wonders and misses him. Eventually she packs up her little rucksack and takes off. She has made a string of beads, which she takes along with a pack-lunch, and a torch in case it is dark where he is. The road is long and lonely, but Sonja thinks about her daddy and that makes her brave enough to keep going.
It is not easy for a small chid to understand what prison is. In Sweden, ten thousand children have a parent serving a custodial sentence at any given time. On an annual basis, there are many more. Add to that all the others who are affected; nursery class, neighbours, cousins. It adds up. And yet there are practically no picture books on the subject of what it is like to have a parent in prison.
Beads for Daddy is a work of fiction and deals with the subject as seen through the eyes of the small child. Sonja goes to the prison to make sure that her daddy is doing fine. She also wants to know why he disappeared. Surely it wasn’t her fault? When she finally reaches her daddy in prison, all is well, because daddy is daddy despite everything!
We believe that Beads for Daddy can be read for all children. Everyone has heard of prison, haven’t they? Don’t all children wonder and think about what it’s like there!
Illustrations: Sassa Buregren
Winner of the Nils Holgersson award 2009 (Swedish Library Association).
