Obituary: Dina Rabinovitch | Obituaries | Guardian Unlimited Books
It was with almost unbearable sadness that I learned of Dina Rabinovitch's death late on Wednesday. Unusually that day, my wife had bought the papers, as I had to be at school early both because the Ofsted man was in for the day and because I had to dress up as a Victorian gent and accompany Year 5 on a role play visit to Preston Manor, Brighton. So it wasn't until the end of a long day, browsing the day's newsprint on the sofa, that the front cover of G2, with the appallingly dreaded news, slipped into view.
Dina was a great fan and supporter of ACHUKA, as I was of her journalism. For a while she contributed reviews to the site. We didn't coincide at all that many events, but when we did she always came up to speak.
Her feature interviews in The Guardian with children's authors will be sorely missed. Being of a squeamish disposition and having something of a primitive horror of conversation and discussion about illness, I was finding both her blog and her regular reports about her physical progress, especially recently, difficult to deal with.
We met face to face no more than a handcount of times. We emailed one another occasionally. And yet I felt a click of connection that led me to believe we would get to know one another better and for that reason alone I always felt confident that she would get well again.
I shall miss her. The world of children's books will miss her. But her family (about which she wrote with such warmly comic candour) will miss her dreadfully. ACHUKA's heart goes out to each one of them.
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