Death is the only inevitable thing in life, and it is the most painful event we will experience. Coping as an adult is hard enough but it is even more tricky to explain uncomfortable grief feelings to our children. When I have not been able to explain a concept to my girls, I have found books help me – sometimes I only need to read them myself, at other times I judge when is the right time to share them with my girls. My top tip is to read the books to yourself before you share them with your children, so that you know where the story ends and you understand the message that the book is trying to get across.

Here are my favourite children’s books that have helped me over the years:

“Big Bag of Worries”
by Virginia Ironside

This is a great book for children who struggle with any kind of worries. The narrative illustrates that everyone has worries and the best thing to do to make the worries go away or to feel as though they are more manageable is to talk about them with someone that you trust.

“Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A guide to Daily Happiness for Kids”
by Carol McCloud

The concept of an invisible bucket that represents our emotional and mental health is used to explain how rewarding and simple it can be to express kindness and love by ‘filling buckets’ as well as understanding that bullying and ‘bucket dipping’ are negative behaviours but that filling other people’s buckets magically fills your bucket too. It’s a great book to help children understand how to love others and be kind to each other.

“My Feelings”
Illustrated by Sarah Jennings

There are many ‘feelings’ books, and another family favourite that helped my girls to understand their emotions is “How are you feeling today” by Molly Potter. I found that asking for the relevant page of either book could start a conversation where words were lost and on a couple of occasions a feelings book would be brought to me open to show a specific emotion that I realised was my daughter’s way of explaining her inner world to me.

“The Secret C”
by Julie A. Stokes

This book is written by a clinical psychologist who founded the children’s charity Winston’s Wish in the hope that a children’s book about cancer would help adults and children to talk openly about the difficult feelings and issues surrounding a diagnosis. I found it was also a useful insight to some of the questions that children might have about the impact of cancer on their lives – a must read for parents who have cancer in their family and want to be able to talk on their child’s level.

“When someone you love has cancer - A guide to help kids cope”
by Alaric Lewis

Although this book explains cancer in a child’s language, the last page says that the person living with cancer might die and I found that too hard to share with my girls. I bought the book long before I told them the hard truth that their dad would never ben cancer-free. Even if you do not share this book with your children, I think it helps adults to understand the concept of living with cancer from a child’s perspective. I recommend it as a good book for adults to read when they first have a cancer diagnosis in a child’s family.

“Badger’s Parting Gifts”
by Susan Varley

This story is about an old badger whose body doesn’t work anymore and how his friends come to the realisation after he has died that he left them each a gift. It is the book that my girls school used to explain death during PSHE lessons in prep school. It is overtly about death but a gentle story that helps children to understand the concept of coming to terms with the death of a loved one.

“Water Bugs & Dragonflies - Explaining death to young children”
by Doris Stickney

This story was read as one of the readings at my late husband’s funeral. Sadly I am not sure it is still in print. The narrative of water bugs watching friends head to the surface never to return explains death as a lovely place above the water where the dragonflies live, but sadly a world that they can never return back from, even when they wanted to.

“The Invisible Leash”
by Patrice Karst

This story of two school friends Zach and Emilay explains the sadness of the permanent loss of family pets to children. It illustrates that when our pets have died they are only a heart-tug away, connected to our hearts by an Invisible Leash. The book explains that our pets will die but our love for them lives on.

“Giraffes Can’t Dance”
by Giles Andreae & Guy Parker-Rees

This well-known story about a giraffe who cannot dance but who longs to join in with the other animals shows children that we are all unique but when we find ourselves in an environment that we love we can enjoy ourselves in our own way.

“The Paper Dolls”
by Julia Donaldson & Rebecca Cobb

The message of this story relates to a girl who cuts paper dolls but sadly things get broken or go missing. She realises that although they may no longer be with us, we keep their memory inside us forever.

***

This list is constantly updated, so if you have any other books that you feel should be included please email at info@rainbowhunting.co.uk.