Claire King, The Night Rainbow

The Night Rainbow by Claire King is the sort of book your mum might read (though to be honest I tried to pass this on to mine, and she rejected it). It's all about mother/daughter and sibling relationships and childhood. Though there is family strife, and grief over the death of a beloved husband/father, it's a gentle kind of book, full of simple childish pleasures, and is devoid any explosive drama or abrupt occurrence.   

The Plot: Five-year-old Pea and her younger sister Margot play in the sweltering heat of rural France. Their mother spends her days in bed, worn down by pregnancy and paralysed by sadness over the death of her husband. When Pea meets Claude in the meadow, she wonders if he can cure her mother's unhappiness and become her new papa, but Claude has a secret sadness of his own.

Rating: 3.4/5
Full review (as always) under the cut:-