Alicia Afterimage

Review
By Children's Literature

Delacre, who is the author and illustrator of many fine books for young readers, chronicles this painful time along with memories of her daughter and the meaning of it all in the lives she touched. Her courageous and moving account is drawn from many different views of Alicia’s life. . . . Delacre writes with courage and compassion, sometimes grieving, at other times unflinching. . . . In finding the transcendent quality of healing, the final Mama chapter almost seems to tap some mystical universal wellspring. It is about the endurance of hope when there seems to be none, the deeply human connections we make when we least expect them, and the ability to “allow grief to rise and be released whenever it had to be.” Memoir touched with the lightest strokes of fiction, Alicia Afterimage is an unusual, heartrending tribute to a lost child. But more than that, it’s a road map to healing and an appeal to young people who may be at risk for just such needless tragedies.