Selling points
• AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR: JeanFrançois Sénéchal has won numerous awards for children’s literature, including, most recently, a 2021 Governor General’s Award.
• SAFE SPACE: The topics of death and loss are difficult for any child, but parents and educators will be able to use this text to gently introduce the topic.
• POETIC PROSE: Sénéchal’s words offer an early introduction to poetic forms of writing for young readers.
• GENTLE ATMOSPHERE: Chiaki Okada’s soft, muted tones create the warm, inviting atmosphere for young readers to approaching the subject of personal grief.
Other title by these creators For All the Star Accross the Sky (Karl Newson, Chiaki Okada – Candlewick, 2019)
I Wish I Could Tell You
Text: Jean-François Sénéchal
Illustrations: Chiaki Okada
Hardcover
48 pages
Width: 8.5”
Height: 11.5”
Ages 3 to 6 Grade: 0-3
Publication date: August 15, 2023 Full-color illustrations throughout ISBN: 9781990252242
Price: US$19.99 CAN$24.99
Fiction
Distributed in the US by Abrams and in Canada by Manda Group A touching, poetic tale that wrestles with the complex emotions we feel when we lose someone close to us.
Rights sold
Chinese — Ginkgo Book
Dutch — Standaard
French — Saltimbanque
German — Jacoby & Stuart
Italian — EDT
Japanese— Hyoronsha Publishing
Korean — Wisdom House
Portuguese — VR Editora
Spanish — Tramuntana
US/Canada — Milky Way Picture Books
Losing someone you love, someone close to you, can be difficult to talk about. But, sometimes, writing a letter can help you find the words you wish you could say. That’s exactly what a young fox realizes one morning after learning about the death of his beloved grandmother, someone with whom he shared so many special memories. As he longingly searches for any trace of her presence in all their familiar haunts, the young fox soon discovers that only by embracing his grief will the right words — the words he wishes he could say to grandmother — come to him.
Jean-François Sénéchal was born among books. After studying anthropology, he returned to his first love, devoting himself to literature. He is a well-decorated author, as the winner of the 2017 Joseph S. Stauffer Prize in Literature from the Canada Council for the Arts, a 2019 Prix jeunesse des libraires du Québec, and a 2021 Governor General’s Award, for which he was also a finalist in 2019.
Chiaki Okada is an illustrator and author of children’s books from Osaka. Her gentle, calming artwork was selected for exhibition at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2010 and she has since illustrated books by authors from around the world. Her first picture book published in English, For All the Stars Across the Sky, was released in 2019. She currently lives in Japan.
