This is a guest post from Eric Holmstrom. (I wasn't able to find a full version of the song to post but you can listen to a sample here.) I had never heard this song before Eric emailed me. It now has an honored position on my playlist. Thanks Eric! And thanks to everyone who sends us great posting ideas.

This next book in our series may be chosen by some simply for the beautiful illustrations.  This is one reason I wanted to spend time reviewing some books on childhood grief.  Although great lists exist out there, we don't often get to see inside the book itself.  Having a toddler myself, I am aware that it is often the illustrations that spark her interest in reading.

Somewhat like our last review on Maria Shriver's book What's Heaven?, author T.A. Barron describes this book as autobiographical. The personal nature of the story definitely adds to the sincerity of the story.

Where is Grandpa? is written by T.A. Barron and illustrated by Christ K. Soentpiet. The book was published by Philomel Books in 2001 and has the age group listed as 4-8.

The voice is first person, and the plot follows a young boy on the day of his Grandpa's death. Much of the story is told in memories, as each family member shares about a  favorite time with Grandpa.  However, when it is the boy's turn he is speechless. After being prompted by his mother about a story he thinks, "Even if I did, I didn't feel like telling it."

Although the family tries to think of suggestions, I appreciate that the boy is allowed to remain silent. The boy then works up the courage for the big question, "Where is grandpa now?"

The final pages attempt to answer this question.  Although the word heaven is used, the father quickly adds, "heaven means different things to different people. And it's hard to explain."  Ultimately it is described as "any place where people who love each other have shared some time together."  This allows the boy to get out of his sad funk and begin to think of the places he shared a memory with his grandpa. In fact the last illustration of the book shows the boy actually smiling.

As mentioned, the illustrations are exquisite. Done with a very realistic feel, there are a lot of nature scenes with special attention on the lighting. Most of the story takes place at dusk, and the illustrator actually moves us subtly  through a sunset to darkness during the book.

This is another book I would recommend. It is lighter than some of the other books reviewed, not tackling as many concepts or questions.  However, I appreciate the simplicity and hope offered in the story.  Like the Shriver book, because this is based on a personal story, we encounter this family's personal beliefs/opinions and one should be comfortable in the concepts presented.


One more to book to go... stay tuned.

Recently I read an essay in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that focused on an interesting topic arts topic. The article entitle "Why we write (and how we can do it better)" discusses why clinicians decide to write and publish their experiences, focusing around five common errors that the author, Allen Peterkin, MD (founding editor of Ars Medica) sees as he reviews submissions.

"I've been forced to reflect on why doctors write, how and when we do it and whether there are mistakes we make as we go along. It occurs to me that this new wave of composition is not always honest, helpful or even benign. As educators, policy-makers and clinicians, we should reflect on what writing and sharing stories means to us, how we approach the task and then contemplate what the risks are to our integrity as physicians"

He starts off with some more basic writing-for-publication type issues. One mistake he sees is too much cutting to the chase, writing more of a case report than a story. He find that doctors "favour tidy endings, epiphanies and accounts of patients who exhibit courage and triumph over adversity." He feels stories about our failures are much more honest and interesting. He also sees that often doctors forget who they are writing for. The story may be more for the author and not for the reader.

As an example of the fourth error, he gives a story told by novelist Margaret Laurence. While at a dinner party, a neurosurgeon told her that he planned to write novels after he quit surgery. She replied "What a coincidence- when I stop writing, I plan to take up brain surgery." He finds that the clinician (specifically physician) writer often lacks humility and patience for the writing process.

The most serious error that he sees is that the clinician feels that the stories heard and experienced in the clinical setting belong to him/her. This error is the ethical and professional issues surrounding publishing a patient's story without permission.

This article really focuses on the patient centered narrative writing we do to be published. I think there is a lot of writing that we do just for ourselves. I don't keep a journal but every once in awhile I do sit down and write out a story. It's always for myself, most often trying to get out some emotion that I didn't feel I could have expressed at the time. It's no great work of literature and often gets erased a few days later. But I think that was Peterkin's point. Not to discourage writing but to point out that there should be a difference in the kind of writing we do in patient charts, for case studies, for ourselves and that which we do and submit for public consumption. For anyone interested in this type of writing, it definitely gives you something to think about.

Thanks to Thomas Quinn who sent me this article.

This next book in our series of children's books that deal with grief has a famous author, which will often add to the appeal in buying a book. Perhaps from the media's input, I had also already heard of this book before actually getting it from the library.

The author, Maria Shriver, points out on the back that this book came from actual discussions with her 6 year old, at the time of the daughter's great-grandmother's death. I think knowing that perspective helps in the review as well, since the previous books Tear Soup and When Someone Dies was written by a hospice worker and grief counselor, respectively.

What's Heaven? is written by Maria Shriver and illustrated by Sandra Speidel. Published by Golden Books in 1999, the age listed for reading 4-8.

Although the title would imply a book all about Heaven there are definitely other topics covered.  The plot line follows Kate who comes home to find her mother sad and news that her great-grandmother has "died and gone to Heaven".  This prompts not questions about death or what "died" means but questions about what Heaven is.  The concepts specifically in question are:  Where Heaven is?,  Are animals there? and How do you get there?  I think these are questions I myself would like to know!

There is also discussion about what a funeral is and thanks to cousin Bobby, questions about the actual casket. Here's an example of a conversation Kate has with her mom: "Bobby told me we are going to a funeral where we are going to bury Great-grandma in a box. Why are we going to do that? Will it hurt Great-grandma? How will she breathe in the box? What if she wants to get out?"

As is typical of little ones, there are many more questions than answers in the book.  As parents have learned, it's more about the concept we are sharing than the specifics of each question.  This book is similar, the general message is one of hope; that after death there is a distant, safe place where all the best parts of someone goes... that it's okay to be sad and it won't last forever and that by remembering our loved ones they remain alive in us.

The illustrations are done in pastels, with a more vibrant feel than some of the grief books I've seen.  The pastel's also allow for a dream like or memory like quality, as sharp details are left out.  There are a lot of words on each page, and no paragraphs, perhaps emulating the way children can move from one topic to another in stream-less fashion.  Each page does have one phrase that is doubled in font size, I suppose then if just browsing the book you could pick up on the highlights.

If you have a child with some of these specific questions, it would be a great book! What's challenging in these types of personal stories, is that your family may not agree with all of the concepts presented.  For instance if you don't want to teach your child, "when your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you up to Heaven to be with him" Then you'd have to either skip the page or do some other teaching on what your family concept is.

In comparison with the other books reviewed thus far, this book is by far the most specific in terms of one family's beliefs and/or opinions.  And rightly so, as the author makes no presumption of being an expert, but simply using her own experience to share with others...

Stay tuned, we have a few more to review!

As mentioned in the first in this series on children's literature dealing with grief, there is an abundance of material out there to recommend to families with children dealing with grief.  In fact, it's often overwhelming with so many choices.  Hopefully this random sample from my local library will, if nothing else, illustrate the wide variety of books out there.

Often until you actually see inside the book yourself, it's hard to know which book is the right one. In fact, if you went on just book lists, the book I'm reviewing today is by far on more lists than any other books I'm reviewing, making me assume it is very popular. Yet without reading it, as you may see, I wouldn't have discovered it's unique style, different than Tear Soup, or even The Goodbye Boat reviewed in an earlier post.

When Someone Dies is written by Sharon Greenlee and illustrated by Bill Drath. Published in 1992 by Peachtree publishers it is written for a reader aged 8-12.

The book is considered plot-less, with each page making more of a conversational statement in second person. This approach seems to lend itself to a normalizing of the emotions and issues surrounding grief.  The statements center around feeling sad and mad, but also about concepts of dreaming of your loved one, and worrying if other people around you will die too.  For example, here are some of the statements:

 "If the person who died was very important to you, you get to worrying that all the other important people might leave too.  I've never heard of it happening that way, but it's hard not to think about it"

"When people die, they can't come to your house anymore. You wonder what they'd look like now, and you do all you can to make a picture of them in your mind."

Towards the second half the author begins to task the reader to actually do some things such as finding someone to cry with and writing a letter to the person who died.

Besides normalizing grief with the second person speech, I noticed that the word "dies" is used 10 times out of  a total of 15 pages of statements.  I can't help but think even using the word is a way to normalize the experience. No metaphors in this book, death is definitely the main character.

The illustrations use a washed out almost dull tone, adding to the mellow nature of the book. One thing I found interesting is that all of the scenes are out doors in nature and the people all Caucasian, which doesn't do much to normalize to a wide audience.

I think for certain children, this type of writing style is what is needed. Due to this books popularity on many of the lists out there, it's definitely good to be familiar with it!

 Stay tuned again for more books coming up...