When Someone Dies by Sharon Greenlee, Bill Drath (Illustrator)

Publishers Weekly

Greenlee, who counsels grieving children through what the publisher calls writing therapy, here offers bibliotherapy to bereaved young readers. Her plotless book adopts the second-person perspective to express a variety of reactions to death and mourning (``If the person that sic died was very important to you, you get to worrying that all the other important people might leave too'') and to offer consolation (``I've never heard of it happening that way, but it's hard not to think about it''). The author's attempts to ape children's speech tend toward the coy (``So, whether you're a kid or a tall person'') and Drath's rather banal watercolors are unnecessarily limiting in that all the people shown are white and all the settings rural. On the whole, however, Greenlee's words will prove familiar and comforting: ``People don't go away like this on purpose, or even set out to make you mad. That's just what happens . . . when someone dies.'' Ages 8-12. (Sept.)

Children's Literature

This is a lovely little book about death that is really appealing to any age, but especially to a young person who has lost a significant person in their life for the first time. It explores all the feelings one goes through from anger to sadness, and with simple analogies, tries to relate them as a natural part of life. The illustrations which depict scenes in nature which give us joy, seem somewhat dated, but are meant to validate life and death as a natural cycle. A nice gift for someone who has lost someone dear.

School Library Journal

K-Gr 2-- The bereavement-counseling technique that forms the basis for this informal, conversational commentary on a child's experience of grief is sound, touching upon important points such as feelings, fears, and the need to cry, but the text is awkward. It sounds more like the transcript of a counseling session than a unified, carefully thought-out piece of prose. The style ranges from plain to lushly sentimental. Pretty, warm-toned watercolor illustrations portraying rural scenes such as a hunter, a fisherman, a boy and his dog, and black-capped chickadees against backgrounds of quiet lakes, mountains, meadows, and forests have little relation to the textual ideas, except to impart a contemplative, but cheering, mood. --Patricia Pearl Dole, formerly at First Presbyterian School, Martinsville, VA

Product Details