What’s Heaven? by Maria Shriver

What’s Heaven?
by Maria Shriver

How do you explain death to children? How do you help them understand the loss of a loved one? Journalist Maria Shriver was faced with this dilemma when her grandmother, Rose, died. Her discussions with her oldest daughter, Katherine, who was six at the time, became the inspiration for Shriver’s first book for children, What’s Heaven? This touching story, beautifully illustrated by award-winning artist Sandra Speidel, is an important tool for other parents trying to explain the mystery of death to their children.

What’s Heaven? tells the story of Kate, a young girl struggling to understand the loss of her great-grandmother. Kate is full of innocent and thought-provoking questions young children ask–why do people die? How do they get to Heaven? What is it like? Kate’s questions are real, coming from Maria Shriver’s own children, nieces, and nephews as they coped with their own family’s loss. As they prepare for Great-Grandma’s funeral, Kate’s mother gives warm and reassuring explanations that help Kate (and the reader) understand that death and grieving are a natural part of life.

Death eventually touches every family, and it can be hard for parents to talk about this difficult topic. Combining her skills as a journalist with her experiences as a devoted mom, Maria Shriver has created a beautiful book that parents of all faiths can share with their children.

Maria Shriver graduated from Georgetown University. A correspondent for Dateline NBC, she lives with her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and their four children in Santa Monica, California.

Grandpa and Me : A Lift-the-Flap Book

Grandpa and Me : A Lift-the-Flap Book
by Karen Katz

Let’s make a pizza with Grandpa! You can help. Lift the large, sturdy flaps to find everything you need.

Little Simon specializes in the most innovative novelty books for children, including pop-ups, lift-the-flap books, board books, sticker books, and holiday books, among other specialty formats.

I Miss You: A First Look At Death

I Miss You: A First Look At Death
by Pat Thomas, Lesley Harker (Illustrator)

When a close friend or family member dies, it can be difficult for children to express their feelings. This book helps boys and girls understand that death is a natural complement to life, and that grief and a sense of loss are normal feelings for them to have following a loved one’s death.

Titles in this sensitively presented series explore the dynamics of various relationships experienced by children of preschool through early school age. Kids are encouraged to understand personal feelings and social problems as a first step in dealing with them. Written by psychotherapist and counselor Pat Thomas, these books promote positive interaction among children, parents, and teachers.

The story lines are simple and direct–easily accessible to younger children. There are full-color illustrations on every page.

Grandloving: Making Memories With Your Grandchildren

Grandloving: Making Memories With Your Grandchildren
by Sue Johnson

Selected as “Outstanding” by Parent Council, winner of the National Parenting Publications Gold Award, and recipient of the Seal of Approval from The National Parenting Center, this new third edition of “Grandloving” is the upbeat comprehensive sourcebook grandparents will find truly helpful.

It highlights tips from 350 families worldwide, heartfelt ideas for holidays, visits, and family traditions, reminders about child development, help for grandparents caring for their grandchildren, an extensive list of resources and book reviews, plus helpful logos, 95 illustrations, and an easy to use 7 page index.

Whether you live near to or far from your grandchildren, you’ll grow closer to them as you use Grandloving’s creative ideas to become the grandparent every child wants!

When Your Grandparent Dies: A Child’s Guide to Good Grief

When Your Grandparent Dies: A Child’s Guide to Good Grief
by Victoria Ryan and R. W. Alley (Illustrator)

There was no review on Amazon for this book, so I plugged the title into Google and came across a reference to pampers.com. Yup, Pampers as in diapers. But I was stunned to learn that when a grandparent dies, especially one that has lived in the same house as an infant, or has frequently visited that infant, the child might begin to show signs of emotional unrest, such as wetting his or her diapers. The child is tuned in to the loss of the grandparent, even though it clearly has no conceptual knowledge of what the grandparent’s death means. Kudos to Pampers for pointing out this relationship.

Here’s an excerpt from pampers.com:

Four-year-old Sara has had another bad day at preschool. Irritable and tired, she challenged her teachers at every turn. When Mom came to pick her up, she was handed a bag of wet clothes — another accident.

Sara’s grandfather is in the hospital. He has lived in Sara’s home since before Sara was born. Last week he suffered a massive stroke and is not expected to live. Sara’s aunt has just arrived with her 3-year-old and is staying in the guestroom. The family’s routine is in turmoil. Sara’s mother is juggling her responsibilities as a parent of two young children, a daughter to her critically ill parent, and an attorney at a law firm.

Click here to read the rest.

Grandy Thaxter’s Helper

Grandy Thaxter’s Helper
By Douglas Rees
Illustrated by S. D. Schindler.
Unpaged. Atheneum Books for Young Readers. $15.95.
(Ages 5 to
Douglas Rees’s story ”Grandy Thaxter’s Helper” is easily the most winning book about outsmarting death (or almost anything else) in many a season. From S. D. Schindler’s illustrations, which paint an irresistible picture of a bygone rural idyll, we learn that cheerful Grandy raises her own vegetables, chickens, flax, grandchildren and assorted orphans. From the look of the outbuildings she’s got a cow and maybe pigs, but Mr. Death doesn’t last long enough to find out.

On an afternoon in autumn (the pumpkins are on the ground, the corn dried in its shocks), a deeply creepy Giacometti stick figure in black, with horrible wisps of hair and violet-gray complexion, arrives to announce he’s going to carry Grandy off. Grandy says sweetly that she can’t go until her work is done, but that if he helps, she can leave sooner.

Poor Mr. Death falls for it.

Read more…
Review by Beth Gutcheon
New York Times, March 13, 2005