Book Review: My Sister, Alicia May

When Nancy Tupper Ling’s childhood friend gave birth to a daughter with Down syndrome, Ling wrote a poem called Our Fragile Emissary. The heartfelt verse quickly landed in e-mail inboxes and on message boards around the world. (You can Google it.) Six years later, Ling wrote a book about the same child, titled My Sister, Alicia May, and what happened next is a tale of fate, serendipity, and maybe something more.

Ling sent her manuscript to Pleasant St. Press, a small publishing house in Raynham, Mass. Co-owner Jean Cochran, who is also a children's book author, instantly loved it, and bought the rights to publish the book. Then she went looking for an illustrator. "I first saw Shennen [Bersani]'s work on a British website for illustrators," Cochran said. She assumed two things: that Bersani lived in the United Kingdom and that she would never be able to afford her.

Cochran contacted the illustrator anyway and learned in a telephone conversation that Bersani lived not an ocean away, but just ten miles down the road from her office. An even more remarkable coincidence is that My Sister, Alicia May was in many ways Bersani's personal story, too. "Shennen informed me that just as with the sisters in the book, she too had a sister — her only sibling — who has Down syndrome," said Cochran. "I had no way of knowing this. We were both in shock at the coincidence.”

It took Bersani a month to decide whether she should illustrate the book. "I thought if I take this on, it will bring up all the emotional stuff," Bersani said. But she chose to do it because, she said, “No one will be able to do it the way I can.”

When Bersani’s sister, Holly, was born 40 years ago, it was a different world. There were few programs for any kids with disabilities. A lot of the day-to-day caretaking for Holly fell on Bersani. She went to art school during the day and watched her sister nights and weekends. Although Bersani is a successful artist now, illustrating books for children that sell more than a million copies around the world, she had never used her professional work to explore her feelings about her sister or disabilities in general.

"I can tell you honestly, I sobbed and wept over a few of the pages as I tried to work on them — I 'became' Rachel [Alicia May's older sister]. I felt every emotion vividly because they were my own.”

The book is filled with these emotions. 

Cochran, whose publishing company is only three years old, said, "It is extremely important to us that our books are as good, if not better — in content, art, and production — as the larger, more established houses with whom we must compete.”

My granddaughter Lucy has Down syndrome and I have spent the last five years in search of a mainstream, beautifully written and illustrated book like this. Until My Sister, Alicia May, I’d found nothing. Cochran said there is a huge void in the market for children's books, especially picture books. "In publishing, there's a saying that everything under the sun has been done. This has not been done. Not like this."

My Sister, Alicia May, which was published May 1, is the story of two real girls, Alicia May and her sister Rachel, and every child who has a sister or a brother or a friend. It is the story of what it's like to love someone. Sometimes the people you love irritate you the most.

Sometimes you want to pretend you don't know them. Sometimes you don't want them tagging along. Sometimes you're so proud of them you want to tell the world.

"Classrooms, libraries, doctors’ offices, and ordinary households need this book," Cochran said. "I feel that it's important as a person and as a publisher to bring awareness, to tell this story."

This is also the kind of tale that belongs on every grandparent’s bookshelf. It is a story first, and only subtly, like all good stories, a lesson.

"She looks like me," an 8-year-old at my local library said after studying the book's cover. Alicia May has long, dark blond hair with bangs, pink cheeks, and a beautiful smile. And what this 8-year-old saw was not a child with Down syndrome, but another little girl with blond hair, just like her.