Dear You. You are here. I don’t know how I know that this is the beginning of you. I just do. I should be afraid. But what I feel is, we can do this. You and I.

When she was pregnant, Emmy had such high hopes for the future. But what happens when you can’t love the baby you thought you’d adore? Sometimes it seems that the best thing is to run away.

 Little Wing shows what happens to Emmy when she leaves her baby with the father, Matt, and tries to find her way back to being herself. Staying with her aunt Charlotte, Emmy wanders through her days with little interest in anything, especially herself. One day she happens upon Martin, a stay-at-home dad, and his young son Pete. They accept her just as she is, and allow her to drift in and out of their lives and home as she pleases. Unable yet to allow herself to even think about the daughter she has left behind, Emmy floats in a grey limbo, only ever feeling alive through the pain of her self harm. But, cushioned by the everyday normality of Martin and Pete and the matter of fact love and concern of her aunt, Emily begins to take tiny steps along the journey back to the person she used to be.

While the actual story could be enjoyed by mature younger readers, I don’t really feel that this delicate and desperately fragile portrait of post-natal depression in a young girl can be fully appreciated by such an age group unless they have some personal experience that they could relate to. Older, more socially conscious readers could read this independently, or perhaps even as part of PSHE studies.

This is the sequel to Mahalia, which tells the story of Matt, the father of Emily’s baby. While not essential to have read it to enjoy Little Wing, I feel that it may be beneficial in order to fully appreciate the “before” and “after” elements of the baby’s birth.

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2007-12-13