About the AuthorThe authors are child development specialists: Ilene Lee is play therapist and education consultant and Kathy Sylwester was a licensed psychologist. Carol Deach has illustrated many other childrens books, including Its My Body. why is the book important When Mommy Got Hurt : A Story for Young Children About Domestic Violence
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy SheashWonderful book for anyone working with domestic violence3 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Using the dog in this story is just inappropriateBy OleannaSo very few books for young children are available on domestic violence, but this one is too weird to help much, because of the dog. . .In the first person, a young child is explaining how his dad got angry and very violent, breaking a door and hitting the child's mom so hard she broke a window and her face bled. She cried, and called the police. This all sets a reasonable scene for understanding the upsetting situation.What isn't reasonable is a live dog entering the picture: There was a police woman, too. She asked if we could take care of a new friend she had just found. We named him Bear. The illustration shows the child alone with the woman, and a small white dog one might assume at first is a stuffed toy. The rest of the text is about the child's realistic feelings, worries and hopes, his mom getting counseling, and their decision to move to his grandmother's, the pictures showing that the dog is real after all, and that he is the best, well-behaved friend in the world to this little child he just met. Nothing at all is mentioned about the responsibilities or expense involved in keeping him, or the well-being of the dog.How does it make sense for a young mother and child, their life suddenly upheaved, to incidentally be given a dog, recently found, requiring all the care and training it will take, plus the expectation that it will be okay for the grandmother to have a dog move in? How does it make sense that a police officer would pass on a dog without trying to find the owner or getting a parent's approval? How would they know the child would be safe with this particular dog?If the family already lived with a dog, without its being introduced in a crisis, this book might be good enough. As it is, it's just not.How disappointed will children feel who who need a book like this but don't also get a wonderful dog to comfort them in all their tumult?