“I have a superhero who lifts me out of / sorrow / and rocks me in her arms.” Hope Anita Smith explores love and loss in a moving collection of poems in the voice of an African American girl whose mother is the anchor in her young life. When her mother dies suddenly, the girl is adrift, at first overwhelmed by grief. Memories offer little comfort early on as she longs for what she no longer has. She is sad and angry and full of regret. She even senses a separateness from friends who are lucky enough to have mothers who drive them crazy. But memory is also a source of healing and solace in the end: “I build trees all the time now / Memory trees. / I start at the base, / my earliest memory, / and work my way up. / Hang moments with my mom in my mind.” Most of the thirty-one poems are accompanied by spare, expressive torn-paper illustrations. (Age 9 and older)