Liv’s mum has been acting strange lately. She’s adamant that Liv learns how to cook the most important meal – bolognaise – and that she shows Liv how to correctly apply makeup. She’s also passed down her old diaries so that Liv can read them when she needs some help with life. But what Liv can’t understand is why it’s so important they do all this stuff now. After a while, Liv’s parents sit her and her brother down and tell them that their mum is going to die. From this moment, Liv’s whole world starts to crash, and she doesn’t really know how to feel about the situation, or feel about her mum.

Dandelion Clocks is a sad yet beautiful story about a family that has to deal with the ultimate grief – the loss of a loved one. The writing is spot on and as you feel Liv’s emotions shift from anger and hurt to utter sadness, it’s hard to keep reading with dry eyes. I highly recommend this for readers aged 10 and up, as it’s a good book for kids to read to understand different life events, or not feel alone if they are going through something similar.

Katherine Dretzke is a bookseller at Readings Hawthorn.