Weekend Dad
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A little boy spends the weekend at his dad’s new apartment in this picture book about how things change when parents separate — and the important things that stay the same.
“This home is home because my dad is here, and it’s nothing like home because my mom isn’t here,” thinks the boy in this story when he enters his dad’s new apartment for the first time. His dad moved out on Monday and now it’s Friday night, the start of his weekend with his dad.
The boy and his dad follow their normal weekend routine — they eat eggs for breakfast, play cards and spend time at the park. And then they do the same things on Sunday. It is hard to say goodbye at the end of the weekend, but Dad gives his son a letter to remind him that, even if they can’t always be together, the boy is loved.
Naseem Hrab has written a poignant yet hopeful story, strikingly illustrated in Frank Viva’s signature style, about what happens when parents separate, and the new reality of having two homes.
Key Text Features
author’s note
writing inspiration
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.3
Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After the narrator's father moves out, the week passes slowly as the boy considers experiences as they relate to his dad ("My mom and I ate tuna-fish sandwiches for dinner. My dad hates tuna fish"). On Friday, he packs some clothes (and Wendell, his stuffed hedgehog) and travels with his father, 48 minutes away by bus, to a new, largely bare apartment: "This home is home because my dad is here. And it's nothing like home because my mom isn't here." Nothing feels the same, but the two do what they can do establish a new normal, relying on their old patterns ("my dad and I always play Kings in the Corner on Saturdays") and doing it all over again on Sunday ("Because that's what we do on Sundays"). Hrab uses repetition ("Down the street, past the park and through the tunnel") to simply yet powerfully establish the family's new routine, while Viva's line drawings, in shades of green, yellow, and rose, gently twine the child's newly separate experiences of family. Ages 3 7.