Sade and her Shadow Beasts is enjoyable, powerful and very thought provoking. This book would help children dealing with a loss as it demonstrates techniques in the story for coping mechanisms.
Through Sade we see how grief taints everyday life but how she battles forth.
My thanks go to the author, publisher and Netgalley in providing this arc in return for a honest review.

This is a deep and powerful book about our darkest fears and a poetic, emotive and brave debut by Rachel Faturoti. Rumbi's extraordinary illustrations perfectly contrast the imaginary world with the everyday world of grief, and bring Sadé's hopes and fears to life. Thanks to Hachette for the ARC.

Can't stop recommending this to my friends who are parents and educators. This is a beautiful book about Sade, a young British-Nigerian girl living in London. After losing her mum, Sade and her family are gutted by grief, but thanks to Ellie, her school counsellor and a group of trusty friends, she finds the tools to pull through. A good resource for talking to children and teens about and helping them pull through bereavement.

Link to full review coming soon.

An absolute triumph. Richly imagined and sensitively written with a beautiful, lyrical quality. A powerful read that had me feeling ALL the feels and one that will live on in my heart.

This is such a beautiful and uplifting story that deals with heavy subject matter in an honest and sensitive way. This is an excellent book to help younger (and older) readers who are dealing with grief or have experienced loss in some form. Having lost close family members when I was young this really resonated for me, and the escape into my imagination with art and writing.

Sadé is a fantastic character, very easy to like and root for. Her development and finding confidence in herself throughout the story is very relatable. Understanding that not everyone can excel in everything is a very good message too. She leads the reader with her on a big emotional journey, and I love how she uses her imagination to deal with bereavement but also find a connection to her mother, whilst finding that she has a real gift for poetry.

The fantasy world with Sadé’s Shadow Beasts adds a whole other layer to this fantastic story, which has me longing to escape to such a world.

Highly recommend this stunning Middle Grade debut, and one that should be in every school library.

I adored this book! It’s beautifully written and manages to deal with the tricky subject of grief in a way that feels so natural. I love the way the story transitioned between Sade’s real world and her imaginary world - the animals and beasts from her imagination becoming a perfect metaphor for her feelings. I also really enjoyed the use of text messages, online chat and screenshots to tell parts of the story - something I know children would really connect with. This book would be amazing to support children going through grief or but also promotes good mental health in general. I can see it being a really big hit in classrooms!

From Sadé's grief comes her journey to battle the perceived guilt and failure she feels over her mother's untimely death. The once friendly creatures in her imaginary world built around words colour shape and verse become very real and scary demons. As her grief deepens and her schoolwork worsens, so the demons insidiously tear apart her beloved safe realm and then leach into her waking life. It was a world she and her mother shared through the magic of stories they wrote.

With a father who refuses to talk about the loss and sisters who deal with things in their own ways, Sadé is lost in her grief and has nowhere to turn to, nobody to talk to. When her elder sister secretly enrols her in grief counselling at school, knowing her father hates the idea, (done through online group chat and in person with Ellie the counsellor) so begins the long journey to a resolution.

Grief is so personal, so complex, that I really didn't know if the author could pull this adventure off in a meaningful, supportive, encompassing and unpatronising/uncliched way.

Let me assure you, I was blown away by the end. It is all of the above and more. This is a thought-provoking tale, that delivers with the utmost sensitivity and in an appealing way a very real look into the many facets of grief and families.

Undoubtedly a MUST READ, that demonstrates the need to be aware that children, as well as adults, have a heavy burden in times of grief, one that needs to be shared.

A fantastic, honest and uplifting exploration of grief, which I think will resonate with and support younger readers who have experienced bereavement. I actually lost a parent at a young age (though not as young as Sadé) and sometimes feel exasperated by how often parents are killed off in stories for younger readers for pure plot convenience, so I really appreciate finding stories which deal with it in a deeper and more sensitive way, which Sadé certainly does.
Sadé herself is such a brilliant main character who goes on a big emotional journey towards healing and also finding confidence in her own talents, including coming to terms with the idea that it’s OK to not excel at everything – a very valuable lesson. The way in which this all came together at the end of the story was satisfying and realistic.
Of course I have to mention Sadé’s Shadow Beasts – I loved this fantastical element which added another layer to the story, and the other supporting characters are just as vivid and memorable. Overall this is a beautiful written and moving story which I’d highly recommend.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

"Your stories are part of me, but I store more of you inside of me…"

If you have been with me for a while now, you know my continuous quest and passion for books that deal with grief, illness, disability and body, especially within the children’s and YA-genre. Because(say it with me guys:) representation matters, especially to young readers! So if you’re going to pitch a book to me as “an illustrated story for fans of Onward and A Monster Calls , about grief and love for readers 9+”, you bet your bottom dollar I’m going to be all over that! I’m happy to say: this is a great one!

12-year-old Sadé has always loved words and stories, especially the ones she crafted with her mum, of an imaginary world filled with candy-floss lilac skies and magical beasts. That all changes when Sadé’s mum passes away, and part of the colour seems drained from her world, making place for sad thoughts and shadowy beasts. With her dad lacking the words to talk about their grief, and the growing anxiety and pressure she feels at school, Sadé soon finds these Shadows spilling into the real world.
With the help of an online grief-support-group, as well as her caring friends, Sadé must find her place and her voice back, in order to banish the Shadow Beasts for good.
Sadé’s journey goes above and beyond in terms of representation of important topic to young readers; it’s a tale of grief over the loss of a parent, family, Nigerian-British culture, diverse friendships, bullying and more. It’s packed to the brim with memorable characters, with Sadé herself topping that list. Her imaginative mind and her distinct voice (both in her poetry as well as her regular narrative) make being inside her head a bitter-sweet joy. Having lost my mum at a similar age, and finding solace in poetry and stories, I deeply related to her, and wished I’d had a character like this at the time I was her age. Sadé’s spunk and humour, as well as the lively cast of warm friends and family that surround her, create a balance and keep the story from ever feeling too heavy. A great example of this is in the way the grief-counselling-group is presented. I was a little hesitant when it was introduced, but it’s a great way of discussing the heavy topics in short bits, interspliced with some much needed humour of strange user-names and the struggles of “online-school” that many a modern middle-schooler will be used to.

Although it’s is own thing entirely, this story was more “Onward” than “A Monster Calls”. Although one of my favourite books of all time, the latter left me a sobbing mess on the floor. Onward however left me with a smile on my face: a heartfelt, but fun journey all together. That’s how I felt after finishing Sadé and her Shadow Beasts.
With a debut like this, and a passion for diverse childrens- and YA-literature that speaks from her bio, I can’t wait for Rachel Faturoti’s next release, which is only a few short months away. In the meantime I’m happy to have another book to add to the list of middle-grade grief-fiction that I can wholeheartedly recommend.

Many thanks to Hachette Childrens Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Sadé and her Shadow Beasts will be out in stores in early July 2022.

A fantastic take on grief and how to deal with it, Sade and her Shadow Beasts is both enjoyable and hopeful for kids dealing with a loss. Told with Sade's energetic verve and vivid imagination, we see how grief bleeds into our everyday lives in different ways but offers support and techniques for how to deal with it which children will find extremely helpful.

Sadé and Her Shadow Beasts is a resonant story on childhood grief, told through the lens of the main character's vivid imagination, her gift for words, and a grief support group.

Faturoti blends Sadé's voice, along with her poetry, and interactions in the grief support together in harmony. This creates a clear picture on how Sadé's grief over losing her mother has affected her in a very real way.

At no point does Sadé's grief seem simple or out-of-the-box. And yet, it is not too heavy that this is a difficult read or that it feels pointed in how grief should be tackled. It takes real skill to find that balance and Faturoti pulls it off in accomplished fashion.

I can’t wait for readers to laugh, to cry, and to know they have a voice that matters!