Gray did not want to give false hope to any child that could be experiencing the demise of their parents’ marriage - this would be unethical, and could be potentially damaging to a child's emotional state (especially, for example, if Gray wrote a story where the parent's got back together, and everything mapped out harmoniously, because that could create a distorted, misleading expectation in a child's mind).

I think this book can help bring comfort to children going through this and lets students who haven't gone through this to sympathize with their classmates more.

Its about him understanding that sometimes things are out of his control and instead of him blaming himself and trying to fix it, he instead accepts it even if it does still hurt.

Perhaps this would be a great story to talk about the effect of structure on the reader and the illusions that structure helps to create. However by removing the crack later in the story but still having the same whole page illustrations provides a key visual message that in time the situation does heal. I am glad that the parents talked to him, that the parents made time to make sure he was fine, and that they explained everything to him. The little boy then learns that is in fact okay that his parents have split and that it is not his fault nor will his parents love for him change. His method for this isn't the usual response though: he looks for glue to stick his mum and dad together.

Wonderful job on showing how a divorce will feel for a kid, like his world, like his everything is also broken apart. Beautiful book from a child’s perspective of handling divorce- really makes you think about how a child may see a divorce of parents.