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What Happened to Daddy's Body?: Explaining what happens after death in words very young children can understand ISBN: 9781785921070
Barber, Alex and Barber, Elke
Published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016
In this follow-up story to 'Is Daddy Coming Back in a Minute?', Alex is now four, and he and his mum begin to talk about what has happened to Alex's Dad's body. He know he was 'cremated' but doesn't understand what that means. Mum explains in simple but effective terms all about coffins and that a human body can't feel anything after death, and that the body was burned in a very hot fire. Alex finds this quite interesting, and on being told that his Mum has the ashes, he want to see them. Together they feel the ashes and discover them to be soft and 'not scary at all'. Alex (who is great at asking questions) wants to know if everyone is cremated. This brings on lots of details about funerals and cemeteries and headstones, and then, of course, Alex wants to know what happens to the body when it is in the ground. Mum has the perfect answer. She takes Alex and younger sister Olivia to the park where they see trees dropping their leaves and this is the right setting for explaining that leaves and buried bodies gradually turn into good earth. When Alex is five, he has a policeman party (his Dad was a policeman) and invited to the party is John, Mum's new boyfriend and his five children. They are all good friends and have a great time, but afterwards, Mum explains that she feels it is time to scatter Dad's ashes somewhere where they can help the trees and flowers to grow. Alex isn't happy about this. It seems like they are trying to forget all about Dad. Mum, as always, explains that this is not so. He will never be forgotten and 'nobody can ever replace him' - an implicit but subtle hint that life is moving on and that John and his children may become more important in their lives. So the ashes are scattered in different ways. The children each get a small bottle of them to keep, some are planted in a pot with a tree from the garden that will go with them wherever they go, and some are scattered in a nearby park where they spent happy times. 'It's okay to be sad,' Mum says, 'But it's okay to be happy too'. And they are! The simple explanations and quite lovely illustrations are highly reflective of the emotions that Alex must learn to deal with, and this story, as well as its predecessor, will prove of real use to grieving families. Superb! Available from Amazon, from good book shops, and from the publisher: www.jkp.com.
Age: 4+