Dark Cloud

Written with compassion and care, a thoughtful story about a little girl who visualizes her depression as a way of learning to cope.

Abigail has a dark cloud. It follows her everywhere. It can be a ball of worries, a swirl of fog or a long shadow. But it’s always with her, getting in the way of things. Her dark cloud makes the other children distant and messes with her grand jeté during ballet class. It even takes away her appetite for birthday cake. Then one day, Abigail begins to figure some things out about her dark cloud. Like how it’s not always the same size. How she can trap it in a sandcastle at the beach. And how, sometimes, she can even step away from it and feel the sunshine on her skin.

In this sensitive picture book, symbolic imagery perfectly captures how depression can look and feel. Anna Lazowski’s lyrical text together with Penny Neville-Lee’s expressive drawings provide young children with a way to understand and