Mayfly Day by Jeanne Willis illustrated by Tony Ross

I am going to quote some sections from this exquisite book :

Here is Mayfly.
It is her first day on earth.
It is also her last.

Mayflies only live for one day.
But is she sad? Not at all.
She is happy to be alive!

This isn't any old day.
This is the best of days.
She lives for each moment.

We talk about mindfulness and mediation.  Mayfly Day is the perfect book to share for an understanding of these abstract ideas.

This is another of those little treasured books I lifted off our shelves as we work our way through our large picture book collection.

Here are the final lines :

Mayfly lays her eggs
It is a peaceful night.
The best of nights.

She makes one last wish:
'Little ones, may all your tomorrows
be as perfect as my yesterday!'

Mayfly watches the moon come up
and the stars go out.
And is thankful for her wonderful life.

Tony Ross has done gentle pastel illustrations for this book. He has worked with Jeanne Willis on several books including Tadpole's promise and Caterpillar dreams.  Here is one page from Mayfly Day :

You could pair this book with Silence or Someday by Eileen Spinelli.

One more interesting thing to share with you.  Inside many of our books we have little presentation stickers because we hold an annual donate-a-book event each year.  Recently some older students returned to our school for work experience and one was the girl who donated this book. Wish I had found it in time to show her.  It was donated in 2007 when she was in Year One.