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Bedtime Story
From the best-selling author of The Tall Man and The Arsonist, a personal tale about death, life and the enchantment of stories. With illustrations by Anna Walker.
Let me tell you a story…
When Chloe Hooper’s partner is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive illness, she has to find a way to tell their two young sons.
By instinct, she turns to the bookshelf. Can the news be broken as a bedtime tale? Is there a perfect book to prepare children for loss? Hooper embarks on a quest to find what practical lessons children’s literature—with its innocent orphans and evil adults, magic, monsters and anthropomorphic animals—can teach about grief and resilience in real life.
As she discovers, ‘the right words are an incantation, a spell of hope for the future.’ From the Brothers Grimm to Frances Hodgson Burnett and Tolkien and Dahl—all of whom suffered childhood bereavements—she follows the breadcrumbs of the world’s favourite authors, searching for the deep wisdom in their books and lives.
Both memoir and manual, Bedtime Story is stunningly illustrated by the New York Times award-winning Anna Walker. In an age of worldwide uncertainty, here is a profound and moving exploration of the dark and light of storytelling.
Let me tell you a story…
When Chloe Hooper’s partner is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive illness, she has to find a way to tell their two young sons.
By instinct, she turns to the bookshelf. Can the news be broken as a bedtime tale? Is there a perfect book to prepare children for loss? Hooper embarks on a quest to find what practical lessons children’s literature—with its innocent orphans and evil adults, magic, monsters and anthropomorphic animals—can teach about grief and resilience in real life.
As she discovers, ‘the right words are an incantation, a spell of hope for the future.’ From the Brothers Grimm to Frances Hodgson Burnett and Tolkien and Dahl—all of whom suffered childhood bereavements—she follows the breadcrumbs of the world’s favourite authors, searching for the deep wisdom in their books and lives.
Both memoir and manual, Bedtime Story is stunningly illustrated by the New York Times award-winning Anna Walker. In an age of worldwide uncertainty, here is a profound and moving exploration of the dark and light of storytelling.
256 pages, Paperback
First published May 26, 2022
61 people are currently reading
984 people want to read
About the author
Chloe Hooper
13 books220 followersChloe Hooper is an Australian author. Her first novel, A Child’s Book of True Crime (2002), was short-listed for the Orange Prize for Literature and was a New York Times Notable Book. In 2005, she turned to reportage and the next year won a Walkley Award for her writing on the death in custody of Cameron Doomadgee on Palm Island, an Aboriginal community off the north-east coast of Australia. The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island (2008) is a non-fiction account of the 2004 Palm Island death in custody case.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 100 reviews
January 26, 2023
When Chloe Hooper’s partner Don Watson was diagnosed with leukaemia they knew they were going to have a battle ahead of them. Trying to come to terms with the diagnosis was hard enough but, Chloe had the heartbreaking job of telling their two young children.
Bedtime Story by Australian author Chloe is an incredibly moving and well-written memoir. Highly recommended.
Bedtime Story by Australian author Chloe is an incredibly moving and well-written memoir. Highly recommended.
March 5, 2022
What a profound privilege it is to sit with the Hooper-Watson family as they process, discuss and live the unwelcome arrival of disease and illness in their family. Hooper writes this book to her eldest son as she grapples with how to explain mortality and death to him and his brother. Believing there must be a children’s book that can illuminate the way, she begins her quest and ends up writing her way through this period and process. I love seeing the world through Hooper’s eyes and mind. She is without question or reservation a writer whose words I crave and seek at any opportunity. This book is a gift to any reader but especially those of us with experiences of sick parents during our childhood. That Hooper chose to share this intimate portrait of this moment of her family’s life and do so in such a raw and honest manner is simply stunning. There is such beauty here.
February 17, 2022
NB This book is scheduled for publication in May 2022.
Bedtime Story is not the kind of book one might 'review' in the usual sense of casting an evaluative eye over it, as Angela Bennie says, 'to judge well'. To read it is to be aware of the intensity of the author's emotional experience, which she shares with the reader in all its raw honesty. It's not a journey an empathetic reader can 'judge'; it's one that you feel...
The award-winning author was working on The Arsonist (see my review) when her partner and father of her two young children was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive blood cancer. Transcending all other consequences of this dreadful diagnosis, is her fear of telling the children. She does not know how to do it, and she researches indefatigably for the right kind of story in our death-denying culture, and she defers telling the boys the news for five months. The reader can sense the disbelief, desperation and her anguish: she knows that denial hampers preparing for the inevitable.
There is something very powerful and poignant about the way this memoir says so little about a mother's own terrors while on a quest to protect her children from them. We witness the unspoken all the same.
Both these parents are wordsmiths, so it is natural that she seeks the stories that will help her children negotiate the likely loss of their father. In her survey of books that fail to meet her needs and theirs, she ranges across contemporary picture books and classics, and discovers that many of the authors we know (the Brothers Grimm, Tolkien, Dahl, Saint-Exupéry, P.L. Travers, C.S. Lewis) were orphaned themselves. These writers, bereaved as children, wrote enchantments with happy endings, and often embedded in their work is a philosophical framework to deal with the dark.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/02/18/b...
Bedtime Story is not the kind of book one might 'review' in the usual sense of casting an evaluative eye over it, as Angela Bennie says, 'to judge well'. To read it is to be aware of the intensity of the author's emotional experience, which she shares with the reader in all its raw honesty. It's not a journey an empathetic reader can 'judge'; it's one that you feel...
The award-winning author was working on The Arsonist (see my review) when her partner and father of her two young children was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive blood cancer. Transcending all other consequences of this dreadful diagnosis, is her fear of telling the children. She does not know how to do it, and she researches indefatigably for the right kind of story in our death-denying culture, and she defers telling the boys the news for five months. The reader can sense the disbelief, desperation and her anguish: she knows that denial hampers preparing for the inevitable.
There is something very powerful and poignant about the way this memoir says so little about a mother's own terrors while on a quest to protect her children from them. We witness the unspoken all the same.
Both these parents are wordsmiths, so it is natural that she seeks the stories that will help her children negotiate the likely loss of their father. In her survey of books that fail to meet her needs and theirs, she ranges across contemporary picture books and classics, and discovers that many of the authors we know (the Brothers Grimm, Tolkien, Dahl, Saint-Exupéry, P.L. Travers, C.S. Lewis) were orphaned themselves. These writers, bereaved as children, wrote enchantments with happy endings, and often embedded in their work is a philosophical framework to deal with the dark.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/02/18/b...
May 18, 2022
“It’s still there. As am I. As your father is. Close to you, all together, safe, inside these pages”
Bedtime Stories is a beautiful memoir, a love story through an intensely difficult time with her partner’s cancer diagnosis. Hooper, seeking guidance from children’s literature, searches for the best way to deliver this news to their sons. There is so much beauty in this book.
Bedtime Stories is a beautiful memoir, a love story through an intensely difficult time with her partner’s cancer diagnosis. Hooper, seeking guidance from children’s literature, searches for the best way to deliver this news to their sons. There is so much beauty in this book.
April 26, 2023
‘I want to tell you a story…’
I opened this book and stepped into a personal tale, one that many of us dread: a reminder of mortality. And how do we tell very young children about the serious illness of a parent or anyone else central to their lives? This was the question Chloe Hooper had to face when her partner Don Watson was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive blood cancer. How could she tell their two young sons? By instinct, Ms Hooper turns to the bookshelf. And, while looking for a way to tell her sons, she explored children’s literature. As she discovered, several authors including the Brothers Grimm, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Saint-Exupéry, P.L. Travers and J.R.R. Tolkien had each suffered childhood bereavements.
Over some months, Ms Hooper agonised, looking for the right stories, the right words to use for her six- and three-year-old sons. We live in a culture now where death can be an abstract, exiled from many lives until well into adulthood. While reading Ms Hooper’s journey, I am reminded of the first significant losses in my own life: two family members before I turned ten. Were we prepared for those deaths? Not that I remember, and not being permitted to attend their funerals meant I could pretend that they had not died. For a while, anyway.
I returned to this book, feeling for Ms Hooper as she tries to do the right thing, the best thing for her partner and her sons. Ms Hooper’s needs become secondary: her life caught up in managing family needs while trying to plan for a less certain future. Children’s literature is full of adventure, of heroic journeys but not all endings are happy.
Ms Hooper’s quest for answers took her through many books I remember from my own childhood. While no one story held the answers she was searching for, her exploration showed her (and us) how some authors respond to personal tragedy.
This beautiful book, with its illustrations by Anna Walker, is profoundly moving.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
I opened this book and stepped into a personal tale, one that many of us dread: a reminder of mortality. And how do we tell very young children about the serious illness of a parent or anyone else central to their lives? This was the question Chloe Hooper had to face when her partner Don Watson was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive blood cancer. How could she tell their two young sons? By instinct, Ms Hooper turns to the bookshelf. And, while looking for a way to tell her sons, she explored children’s literature. As she discovered, several authors including the Brothers Grimm, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Saint-Exupéry, P.L. Travers and J.R.R. Tolkien had each suffered childhood bereavements.
Over some months, Ms Hooper agonised, looking for the right stories, the right words to use for her six- and three-year-old sons. We live in a culture now where death can be an abstract, exiled from many lives until well into adulthood. While reading Ms Hooper’s journey, I am reminded of the first significant losses in my own life: two family members before I turned ten. Were we prepared for those deaths? Not that I remember, and not being permitted to attend their funerals meant I could pretend that they had not died. For a while, anyway.
I returned to this book, feeling for Ms Hooper as she tries to do the right thing, the best thing for her partner and her sons. Ms Hooper’s needs become secondary: her life caught up in managing family needs while trying to plan for a less certain future. Children’s literature is full of adventure, of heroic journeys but not all endings are happy.
Ms Hooper’s quest for answers took her through many books I remember from my own childhood. While no one story held the answers she was searching for, her exploration showed her (and us) how some authors respond to personal tragedy.
This beautiful book, with its illustrations by Anna Walker, is profoundly moving.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
August 15, 2022
I have a special liking for the author, Chloe Hooper and her partner Don Watson. I have read four of her books and met her at the Newcastle Writer’s Festival. After reading the Arsonist she impressed me as being the next Helen Garner.
I think I have read about five of Don’s books and I’ve heard him speak at several writer’s festivals. I remember at a symposium at Sydney University I purchased The Bush and as he signed it for me I said. “Please keep writing.” His response, “I have to if I want to keep food on the table.”
Like many others his biography of Keating was my first Watson read. I have enjoyed many articles and interviews with Philip Adams.
Bedtime Story is a marvellous, emotional read. Hooper writes about how she should tell her two young sons that their father has a serious disease that could be terminal. Her use and control of language is superb, she is one of Australia’s most eloquent wordsmiths.
Throughout the book Hooper refers to children’s literature and an array of classic, and a few modern authors as she searched for the means of explaining their father’s situation. She touches on the loss that many of these authors also suffered in their lives. Having studied children’s literature and been a primary school teacher I had read many of the books mentioned.
Don, and how he is dealing with his predicament, is always hanging in the background. I do admire the man.
The book is illustrated with beautiful charcoal-wash sketches and evocations of forests, leaves, birds and skies.
A moving memoir.
I think I have read about five of Don’s books and I’ve heard him speak at several writer’s festivals. I remember at a symposium at Sydney University I purchased The Bush and as he signed it for me I said. “Please keep writing.” His response, “I have to if I want to keep food on the table.”
Like many others his biography of Keating was my first Watson read. I have enjoyed many articles and interviews with Philip Adams.
Bedtime Story is a marvellous, emotional read. Hooper writes about how she should tell her two young sons that their father has a serious disease that could be terminal. Her use and control of language is superb, she is one of Australia’s most eloquent wordsmiths.
Throughout the book Hooper refers to children’s literature and an array of classic, and a few modern authors as she searched for the means of explaining their father’s situation. She touches on the loss that many of these authors also suffered in their lives. Having studied children’s literature and been a primary school teacher I had read many of the books mentioned.
Don, and how he is dealing with his predicament, is always hanging in the background. I do admire the man.
The book is illustrated with beautiful charcoal-wash sketches and evocations of forests, leaves, birds and skies.
A moving memoir.
July 18, 2022
Beautifully written, I devoured it in one sitting. I don’t have the words to describe all the emotions I felt while reading this book. Absolutely loved it.
December 28, 2022
Fan of children’s literature? You’ll love this.
Written by Chloe Hooper, after her husband (Australian writer, Don Watson) is diagnosed with leukaemia.
With two sons aged 3 and 6, Hooper seeks a perfect children’s story as a vehicle to explain the situation to her children - and possibly herself.
As a wife and mother I had avoided this book, believing it would be heartbreaking, but when I saw this as an audio book from my local library and read by Lisa McCune, I couldn’t resist.
The whole family (teenaged kids, now) listened to this audiobook while on a road trip today. Everyone was moved by this story. Thank you, Chloe Hooper.
Written by Chloe Hooper, after her husband (Australian writer, Don Watson) is diagnosed with leukaemia.
With two sons aged 3 and 6, Hooper seeks a perfect children’s story as a vehicle to explain the situation to her children - and possibly herself.
As a wife and mother I had avoided this book, believing it would be heartbreaking, but when I saw this as an audio book from my local library and read by Lisa McCune, I couldn’t resist.
The whole family (teenaged kids, now) listened to this audiobook while on a road trip today. Everyone was moved by this story. Thank you, Chloe Hooper.
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August 28, 2022This is not a book you rate or review, it's a book you feel. It's like saying: How do you review someone's journal of the most vulnerable time of their lives?
It's a family's journey through sickness & grief.
It's a poem of fear, research and the unknown.
It's layered and complex and something I don't think I could ever fully understand or appreciate.
It's a family's journey through sickness & grief.
It's a poem of fear, research and the unknown.
It's layered and complex and something I don't think I could ever fully understand or appreciate.
August 9, 2022
A clear eyed look at cancer but I felt like it was written for a specific rather than a broad audience.
January 6, 2024
I like the way that Christos Tsiolkas, the author of the Slap and Damascus, commented on this book.
“Chloe Hooper has a formidable talent to take complex stories and ideas and truths, and to distil them into a language of direct and powerful beauty.
This is a story of grief and of patience, of hope and acceptance. It is also a reminder of the solace that books give us, and of how the imaginary worlds we dive into as children remain with us for all our lives, of how they guide us into adulthood and maturity. There is a quiet courage and strength in this book. It is both gentle and uncompromising, a love letter to family and to literature that is bracingly unsentimental. I was profoundly moved, and profoundly grateful. “
“Chloe Hooper has a formidable talent to take complex stories and ideas and truths, and to distil them into a language of direct and powerful beauty.
This is a story of grief and of patience, of hope and acceptance. It is also a reminder of the solace that books give us, and of how the imaginary worlds we dive into as children remain with us for all our lives, of how they guide us into adulthood and maturity. There is a quiet courage and strength in this book. It is both gentle and uncompromising, a love letter to family and to literature that is bracingly unsentimental. I was profoundly moved, and profoundly grateful. “
July 8, 2022
Honestly… next level incredible. If you haven’t read Bedtime Story, you must. A truly moving memoir.
July 15, 2022
Attempting to describe Chloe Hooper’s luminous book Bedtime Story (Scribner, Simon and Schuster 2022) is like the old tale of five different blind men each touching a small part of an elephant and each depicting the creature in an entirely different way. If I told you this was a fairy tale about heroes and journeys and magical quests, you would have one idea. If I told you it was a non-fiction story about a mother coming to terms with her partner’s poor cancer prognosis, you would think it a completely different story. I could tell you it is about monsters in the dark and the stories we tell our children to help them cope. Or I could say this is a story about illness and terror and uncertainty, and about how we explain to our very young children that life is finite, that the people we love will not be there forever, that pain and fatigue and suffering are only a hair’s breadth away from love and joy and completeness.
This is a handbook for those grieving. An escape for those struggling. It’s a story of compassion and tenderness. A book about children’s vulnerability cohabitating with their resilience.
This is a book of poetry – beautiful, languid sentences that sing. The pages include illustrations – dark configurations of clouds and storms, birds and trees, mountains and stars and the unknown, murky blackness of malevolent fog.
It is a memoir. It is a meditation on love and loss. It is a personal journey. It is a love letter to the author’s children, and to her partner. It is a book that attempts to make sense of the incomprehensible, and to accept with grace that which cannot be changed. It is a powerful, illuminating tale full of honesty and wisdom, humour and peace.
The book includes medical information and data and prognoses and treatment plans and side effects and ‘chances’ and deterioration and recovery and all that is overwhelming about chronic or terminal illness.
This book is a compendium of all the bedtime stories and fairy tales from all over the world that have ever been told – Hooper has researched authors and stories with a forensic and academic attention to detail.
This is a tale of courage, strength, solace, determination and wonder.
Just as in life, I cannot tell you the ending. You must read that for yourself.
This is a handbook for those grieving. An escape for those struggling. It’s a story of compassion and tenderness. A book about children’s vulnerability cohabitating with their resilience.
This is a book of poetry – beautiful, languid sentences that sing. The pages include illustrations – dark configurations of clouds and storms, birds and trees, mountains and stars and the unknown, murky blackness of malevolent fog.
It is a memoir. It is a meditation on love and loss. It is a personal journey. It is a love letter to the author’s children, and to her partner. It is a book that attempts to make sense of the incomprehensible, and to accept with grace that which cannot be changed. It is a powerful, illuminating tale full of honesty and wisdom, humour and peace.
The book includes medical information and data and prognoses and treatment plans and side effects and ‘chances’ and deterioration and recovery and all that is overwhelming about chronic or terminal illness.
This book is a compendium of all the bedtime stories and fairy tales from all over the world that have ever been told – Hooper has researched authors and stories with a forensic and academic attention to detail.
This is a tale of courage, strength, solace, determination and wonder.
Just as in life, I cannot tell you the ending. You must read that for yourself.
May 15, 2022
I finished this book a week ago, but needed to sit with my thoughts before writing this review.
What a beautiful and profound piece of writing. Open, honest and brutal it put in to words an experience that I went through over the last 2.5 years but with a different outcome.
Hooper needed to find the words to help her explain to her two young boys that their father was sick and the outcome was dire. As an author herself, she turned to the world of children's books for the assist but found them seriously lacking. Drawing on her research she explored myths, fables, classics and modern books. She looked at the authors and their experiences. All the while, watching her partner fade and her eldest asking questions.
This book is beautifully written and as a reader experiencing fresh grief myself, I found that this book allowed me the tears I refused to let fall. Bedtime Stories is for booklovers - Hooper's exploration of the world of children's stories brings new meaning to old tales. It is for people going through the worst time of their lives and looking for answers to help their children understand what we struggle to put in to words. This book is for people looking for hope. - that even in dark times, children and the world around us can inspire hope in the smallest things. Hold on to that. For hope is precious and tiny but like everything else can inspire us to grow and to fight.
What a beautiful and profound piece of writing. Open, honest and brutal it put in to words an experience that I went through over the last 2.5 years but with a different outcome.
Hooper needed to find the words to help her explain to her two young boys that their father was sick and the outcome was dire. As an author herself, she turned to the world of children's books for the assist but found them seriously lacking. Drawing on her research she explored myths, fables, classics and modern books. She looked at the authors and their experiences. All the while, watching her partner fade and her eldest asking questions.
This book is beautifully written and as a reader experiencing fresh grief myself, I found that this book allowed me the tears I refused to let fall. Bedtime Stories is for booklovers - Hooper's exploration of the world of children's stories brings new meaning to old tales. It is for people going through the worst time of their lives and looking for answers to help their children understand what we struggle to put in to words. This book is for people looking for hope. - that even in dark times, children and the world around us can inspire hope in the smallest things. Hold on to that. For hope is precious and tiny but like everything else can inspire us to grow and to fight.
May 25, 2023
I'd pretty much read anything that Chloe Hooper writes, she writes with great empathy and appears to get to the heart of the matter. There is nothing superficial about the way she tackles her subjects. This is the most personal story that I've read of her works. Her partner the great writer, Don Watson (author of The Redfern speech, delivered by PM Paul Keating, amongst other notable works) was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. With two young children, she didn't just have to navigate how she deals with it but "How do we tell the children?"-how do we prepare them for what could be the worst.
As a writer she turns to children's literature for guidance, didn't have much luck there, so by page 61, she turned her focus to the writers of great children's literature. What follows are interesting biographical pieces and a surprisingly common thread about the loss of a parent and childhood challenges (such as Eric Carle, trying to survive as a child in Nazi Germany during WW2). We know that bedtime stories gives us a balm to get through what might be the uncertainties of night but that the best of them were already a balm for great loss by the writers is surprisingly new to me.
For anyone dealing with cancer or a life threatening illness drawing on this family's experiences might also help in someway. Another of her works that will really stay with me. Excellent and a surprisingly quick read once I set my mind to it.
As a writer she turns to children's literature for guidance, didn't have much luck there, so by page 61, she turned her focus to the writers of great children's literature. What follows are interesting biographical pieces and a surprisingly common thread about the loss of a parent and childhood challenges (such as Eric Carle, trying to survive as a child in Nazi Germany during WW2). We know that bedtime stories gives us a balm to get through what might be the uncertainties of night but that the best of them were already a balm for great loss by the writers is surprisingly new to me.
For anyone dealing with cancer or a life threatening illness drawing on this family's experiences might also help in someway. Another of her works that will really stay with me. Excellent and a surprisingly quick read once I set my mind to it.
January 27, 2022
After reading The Arsonist and Tall Man I have developed a lot of respect for Chloe Hooper and her non fiction writing. Her new book Bedtime Story has not disappointed. It is part memoir, looking at living with her husbands leukaemia diagnosis, and grappling with how and when you discuss this with young children. It is also reads like an essay collection, looking at how to use children’s books to assist parents to talk about the issues of loss and death. These two writing elements merge together seamlessly in each chapter. This book will perhaps have a more limited readership than her earlier two titles, but it definitely cements her role as a quality Australian author.
October 25, 2022
“ … to have no fear at all is as absurd as to be full of fear”.
How would you break the news to someone that a loved member of your family is dying? How do you have a conversation about that with their child?
Oh my heart. This book kept my tears flowing in my mind and down my cheeks. This is a touching recollection, a memoir if you will of Chloe Hooper’s partner (Don Watson – I love his book about Paul Keating) who was diagnosed with cancer. Their children are quite young, and the books works us through the anguish and uncertainty of death, and in essence, how to explain the death of a parent to a young child. At the same time, the process of how to communicate this seems like a cathartic journey for Chloe. older partner/father and two young children.
Chloe seeks out literature and books for children that talk about death, and deal with death. She buys books that address grief in ways that are suited for children, as well as looks into how death is dealt with in literature, and how several prominent authors dealt with the passing of their own parents and siblings as writers. There are illustrations, almost like monochrome watercolours in the book. They speak so much more where they are situated in this book than the words do.
This book is sweet, intimate, raw and emotional. It is honest, it captures fear and the unknown, and is comforting at the same time. I felt like a voyeur into Chloe’s life yet at the same time I felt like she had wrapped a large fluffy blanket around all of our shoulders to explain dying to us.
“If we pay attention, Death can show us how best to live.”
How would you break the news to someone that a loved member of your family is dying? How do you have a conversation about that with their child?
Oh my heart. This book kept my tears flowing in my mind and down my cheeks. This is a touching recollection, a memoir if you will of Chloe Hooper’s partner (Don Watson – I love his book about Paul Keating) who was diagnosed with cancer. Their children are quite young, and the books works us through the anguish and uncertainty of death, and in essence, how to explain the death of a parent to a young child. At the same time, the process of how to communicate this seems like a cathartic journey for Chloe. older partner/father and two young children.
Chloe seeks out literature and books for children that talk about death, and deal with death. She buys books that address grief in ways that are suited for children, as well as looks into how death is dealt with in literature, and how several prominent authors dealt with the passing of their own parents and siblings as writers. There are illustrations, almost like monochrome watercolours in the book. They speak so much more where they are situated in this book than the words do.
This book is sweet, intimate, raw and emotional. It is honest, it captures fear and the unknown, and is comforting at the same time. I felt like a voyeur into Chloe’s life yet at the same time I felt like she had wrapped a large fluffy blanket around all of our shoulders to explain dying to us.
“If we pay attention, Death can show us how best to live.”
October 27, 2022
I had the good fortune to hear Chloe Hooper interviewed on the ABC following the release of this memoir and was very much looking forward to reading her family’s story of their shared and individual challenges in dealing with her husband’s diagnosis and prognosis. My expectations were exceeded by a good margin. I felt like I was taken along on this bumpy ride with them and was so grateful for the experience. Chloe Hooper was open, honest and natural in her quest to find the best words to make her boys understand what was facing them. She was vulnerable and modest. I felt that her search was just as much about her coming to terms with her own imagined future, a future possibly without her dearly loved and valued partner. The many and varied texts quoted were very valuable and seamlessly incorporated into the text. The shared love of storytelling and literature in this family shines through. What a gift to her boys. Priceless.
January 13, 2023
This book truly shows a mother's love to put the needs and protection of her children before her own. We don't see much of the authors feelings regarding the terrible disease that her husband is facing. We read more about her fears and feelings of how to tell her children.
I felt everything all the way through the book, it isn't one that warrants star ratings or a lengthy review.. how can I comment on what was one of the authors worst times of her life. How can we rate a journey of sickness and of grief.
All I can say is that I felt so privileged that the author wanted to share this journey of a part of her life with us. The words were powerful and intense right the way through. The memoir holds so much beauty between these pages from a parents love to seeking guidance from children's books in the hope of them having the answers to help her guide her children through a traumatic event.
Such a moving memoir.
I felt everything all the way through the book, it isn't one that warrants star ratings or a lengthy review.. how can I comment on what was one of the authors worst times of her life. How can we rate a journey of sickness and of grief.
All I can say is that I felt so privileged that the author wanted to share this journey of a part of her life with us. The words were powerful and intense right the way through. The memoir holds so much beauty between these pages from a parents love to seeking guidance from children's books in the hope of them having the answers to help her guide her children through a traumatic event.
Such a moving memoir.
August 1, 2022
'This is what my friend tells me about her grief. Grief has pulled her out further than she thought she could go. To the edge of what is possible to bear, of what's habitable, and than further again. The boat that takes the loved one to the underworld turns those who are left into castaways. Cut adrift, they have to find their way back to the mortal world, to life.'
May 21, 2023
I love Chloe Hooper’s writing and I loved the personal story. What I didn’t like as much in this book were the references to and searches for various children’s books on death, nor quoting excerpts that to me did not capture the magic of the real story happening within the pages. I also got confused with the references to ‘your’ which was a direct comment for her son to whom the book was written… but because it was the husband not the son battling cancer, and there was another child, that reference to ‘Your face’, ‘Your view’ kinda threw me a bit. Perhaps if I didn’t take as many breaks in my reading this would not have been an issue.
February 4, 2023
Beautiful, raw snapshot of a family with young children riding the rollercoaster of a parent cancer diagnosis. Told mostly in the voice from mother to eldest child. This was so emotional, simple, precious, mundane, everything. Coupled with the illustrations, this is one of the most memorable books I have read in a long time.
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April 12, 2023Wow, such an interesting, powerful, and beautifully written book. I've added so many sticky notes to passages I want to return to; that's always a good sign ;-)
May 26, 2023
In Bedtime Story, Chloe Hooper invites the reader to peer into the deeply vulnerable experience of raising two young children while her partner, Don, battles with a leukaemia diagnosis. Hooper writes to her eldest son in this book, and as she herself navigates the emotions surrounding Don's illness, her writing focuses on the impossible challenge of helping children to navigate a situation that even adults struggle deeply with. Chloe Hooper conveys dark and complex concepts with tenderness, and the book is both deeply analytical and very intimate.
November 13, 2023
This was gorgeous… a poignant, part-memoir part-story about death but also life
January 18, 2023
I love Chloe Hooper's non-fiction books. This one is a combination of academic research (into children's books about death and dying), and her own real life family drama. Too much academia for my liking but still enough gold in the family drama to warrant 5 stars.
8/10
8/10
December 27, 2022
Hooper is really good at being at once intellectual, emotional but not sentimental when writing about damn tough stuff and vividly descriptive, noticing the finest details about her daily life and surroundings. I loved this book not just for its moving, and urgent, subject, but also for Hooper's essayistic skills, her ability to find intimate connections between various seemingly unrelated phenomena - something all my favorite essayists do. And the book is gorgeously illustrated to fit its subject matter.
January 5, 2023
This was a beautiful book. However, it calls for a very specific and refined audience.
Reading this felt like I had intruded on a conversation where I had no familiarity with the subjects being discussed. A mix of awkwardness and politeness got me through to the end.
Reading this felt like I had intruded on a conversation where I had no familiarity with the subjects being discussed. A mix of awkwardness and politeness got me through to the end.
October 13, 2022
Beautifully written, lyrical memoir and fascinating from a professional perspective.
June 27, 2022
Chloe Hooper’s partner has cancer and they must, at some point, tell their children. Not knowing quite how to do such a thing, she looks to literature for help. Bedtime Story is an extended letter to the oldest boy, a tender and exploratory look at sharing grief. Complete with gloriously dark illustrations one might find in a children's book on death-as-a-monster, Hooper’s passion for reading comes through strongly and in such a triumphant way that it’s a balm to us readers who are witness in our own reading to her loved-one’s serious, ongoing illness. Few books I’ve read feel so profoundly indebted to human emotion. It’s a powerful, provocative and deeply delicate book.
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