WINNER of the Junior Juries Award and Judges Special Award – KPMG Children's Books Ireland Awards 2024
WINNER of the UKLA Book Awards 2024
SHORTLISTED for The Oscar's Book Prize 2024
'A beautiful, gentle, rhyming exploration of grief and mourning.' – Joseph Coelho, Waterstones Children's Laureate 22-24
The Hare-Shaped Hole is a beautiful, touching and poignant picture book that gently explores themes of grief and loss.
Hertle and Bertle were always a pair, though one was a turtle and one was a hare.
They were utterly buddies, and best friends forever, and whenever you looked, you would find them together... until quite unexpectedly... the end came. When Hertle disappears for good, Bertle can only see a Hertle-shaped hole where his friend should be. He pleads with it, get angry with it, but the hole still won't bring his Hertle back. It seems like hope is lost... until Gerda the kindly bear finds him.
She explains that he must fill the hole with his memories of Hertle. And slowly... Bertle begins to feel a little bit better.
Powerful and moving text from children's author and poet John Dougherty is paired perfectly with warm illustrations from the wonderfully talented Thomas Docherty in a thoughtful and sensitive approach to this difficult topic.
This moving picture book will be loved and treasured by children and adults alike. With kids, it can be used to start a gentle conversation about death and grief. And as a gift for a grieving friend, it’s the ideal gesture. Anyone who has lost a pet or loved one will be comforted by Bertle’s journey to acceptance and reassured by the fact that, eventually, things do get better.
Kids will love this hilarious fairy tale adventure packed with clever twists, familiar characters and page-turning fun.
The second book in a fabulous new magical, middle-grade series filled with adventure, wonder and wildness,
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JOHN DOUGHERTY lives in Gloucestershire. A supply teacher with plenty of experience of classroom activities in primary education, he is also a singer-songwriter with one CD already available - and has appeared on TV when his living room was designed in a Gothic style by Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen. In 2004, he also ran the London Marathon to raise funds for a c
More about John DoughertyThomas Docherty found reading and writing really difficult as a child, so he ended up keeping a sketchbook diary, especially if he travelled somewhere new. That was the inspiration for his first picture books To the Beach and Little Boat.
More about Thomas Docherty
