Foley and Jem

by Mary Murphy

Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Children's author and illustrator Mary Murphy enchants even the youngest of readers with her bold style, combining eye-catching graphics and a bouncy text that seemingly jump off the pages.

Mary Murphy has an advanced diploma in Visual Communications and has written and illustrated a number of children's books, including her lift-the-flap, pull-the-tab book about friendship, ROXIE AND BO TOGETHER. In addition to creating children's books, she teaches illustration. The author-illustrator lives in Galway, Ireland.

Reviews

[Joanna Zawalska]

Foley is a boy who loves space. His best friend, a dog named Jem not so much but he loves Foley so he tries to be supportive. Over the years, Foley's obsession lead to building a rocket. But he didn't want to go on it to Mars himself, so he made Jem to go. Jem tried to tell him how he hates that idea but Foley couldn't understand him. Long story short, Jem finds new friends on Mars who understand him perfectly and sends message to Foley that he finally is happy and would never return. The boy gets to understand his mistake and has to face natural consequences of his actions. But he eventually finds a dog that becomes his new best friend and he makes a promise to always be good to him.

I can understand low ratings as this story might be perceived as too dramatic for a young kid (the dog who happily leaves his owner and never comes back) but I disagree with them. This story is a great opening for a conversation with your kid about natural consequences and about importance of proper communication and actual listening to others with an open heart. Those are characteristics we need more in our society and we need to talk about it more. It is hard to learn a proper communication, especially in today's world, dominated by technology so we need to navigate our children to achieve a satisfying life.