The Boy Who Lost His Laugh

By Dimity Powell & Heidi Cooper Smith

EK Books 2026

Reviewed by Zewlan Moor 

Dimity Powell and EK Books have a track record of creating evocative, multi-layered picture books on tricky topics. The publishing house’s motto is “Books with Heart on Issues that Matter”, and Powell’s previous books, Oswald Messweather, The Fix-It Man, At the End of Holyrood Lane, and This Is My Dad deal with challenging topics of parental depression; domestic violence; and absence of a father figure.

Once again, Powell has managed to wrap a difficult concept into a storyline children can relate to. Heidi Cooper-Smith’s illustrations in a complementary palette of orange and blue; mauve and green, are suitably soft and gentle. In the opening spread, a young blonde boy called Tim is shown happily playing with his toy dinosaurs. Then on the next page he is illustrated standing alone, wistfully watching a family of five hanging out together at a park. The text says, “the one thing Tim had never had …/… was a family of his own.” 

The next two spreads describe how Tim has changed families so many times he never bothers to unpack his toy dinosaurs anymore. He is worried about losing them, just like he has lost his laugh. These pages are full of repeating square and rectangular frames, from the car window to photo edges, that depict Tim separate from his foster families. In the first he is in the back seat of a car, farewelling a family that have a new baby. The next spread shows a gradual change in Tim from laughing and expressive to quiet and watchful, and finally withdrawn. This spread could encourage discussion with children about the different family dynamics depicted, and what they think Tim is feeling.

Later in the book, the linear frames disappear and the illustrations of the Lee family are set out more in vignettes, with a sense of the energy and movement of a chaotic family. The only straight lines are the bird’s eye view, diagonal, offset lines of Tim’s bed, reflecting his askew alienation as he keeps his feelings “safely tucked away”. 

The narrative arc of the story is Tim’s journey of reclaiming his lost laugh. In Powell’s text, Tim moves from passively relishing the “ridonculous racket” (an apt choice of adjective for a dinosaur-obsessed boy), to actively tootling “like a baby honking dinosaur hooting his horn”. The emotional transition is illustrated visually by Cooper-Smith’s caterpillar in the early spreads transforming into a butterfly on the final page. 

There are not many picture books about foster children, and this is possibly the first one about a foster kid who has been moved between multiple foster homes. Since this situation of “family hopping” is relatively common for foster children, this book is a welcome addition for social workers and other health professionals working with children; as well as foster families, families of origin, schools, teachers and classrooms of affected children. While helpful for foster children themselves, The Boy Who Lost His Laugh could also provide an opportunity for discussion with classmates and friends of foster children, if approached sensitively.

Dimity Powell is an Australian author and reviewer

 

 

 

Zewlan Moor is the author of Nothing Alike, The Bill Dup and Our World: Philippines. Her next book, Say Hello Like an Armadillo is out in the US/UK in June 2026 and Australia in Summer 2026-7. Pre-order or add it to your Goodreads Want To Read shelf now!