Review Detail

To the End of the World, Far, Far Away

Kids Fiction 307

Celebrating mothers and their love

April 11, 2025 (Updated: June 12, 2026)

Overall rating

4.5

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

5.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

5.0

Louis spill's his milk, and his mother is angry. Louis doesn't take this well, gets angry himself, and threatens to run away because he feels his mother doesn't love him anymore. When he tells his mother he is going "to the end of the world, far,far away", she lets him know that if he were to do this, she would be very sad. She will cry oceans of tears, sob to the winds, go into the forest to weep, and tell all the world that her baby bear is gone and that she misses him. She ends with telling all of Louis' toys that he is gone, and he decides that he will stay after all. It's much more fun to travel to the end of the world with someone else.

Good Points

The soft, pastel artwork in this is perfect for this gentle story of maternal devotion, and the dreamlike depiction of the mother's travels. The ocean setting was particular lovely, and brought to mind Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa. The anthropomorphized bears have expressive faces, and their cave home looks cozy and inviting. If I were the little bear, I wouldn't want to leave!

Every generation had a similar picture book with a clever tag line. This felt a bit like an updated reboot of Brown and Hurd's 1942 The Runaway Bunny. It was far less creepy than Munsch's 1986 Love You Forever, and deserves holds a place on a picture book shelf with McBratney's 1988 Guess How Much I Love You, Sze and Lee's 2021 My Love For You Is Always, Galkina and Ladatko's 2022 Mommy's Love
and Hepworth's 2024 I Love You To the Moon and Back.