Butterfly Lampshade

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' The Butterfly Lampshade is an unflinching, empathetic portrayal of a childhood touched by mental illness. As always, Aimee Bender’s respect for the child and the child within translates into wisdom and magic on the page.' Jing-Jing Lee, author of How We Disappeared

On the night her mother is taken to a mental hospital after a psychotic episode, eight year-old Francie is staying with her babysitter. Next to the couch on which she’s sleeping, there is a lamp that catches her eye, its shade adorned with butterflies. When she wakes, Francie sees a dead butterfly floating in a glass of water. She drinks it before the babysitter can see.

Twenty years later, Francie is compelled to make sense of that moment, and two other incidents – her discovery of a desiccated beetle from a school paper, and a bouquet of dried roses from some curtains. Her recall is exact: she is sure these things were real. But despite her certainty, she wrestles with the hold these memories have over her, and with what they say about her place in the world.

Told in lush, lilting prose, The Butterfly Lampshade is a heartfelt and heartbreaking examination of the sometimes overwhelming power of the material world, and of a broken love between mother and child.

______________________________________ 'Abajurul Fluture este o descriere neclintita si empatica a unei copilarii afectate de boli mintale. Ca intotdeauna, respectul lui Aimee Bender pentru copil si copilul din interior se traduce prin intelepciune si magie pe pagina. ' Jing-Jing Lee, autorul cartii Cum am disparut In noaptea in care mama ei este dusa la un spital psihic dupa un episod psihotic, Francie, in varsta de opt ani, sta cu babysitter-ul ei.