Tag loss and grief

Penguins Don’t Wear Pink / Missing Violet

jillrbennett Leave a comment

Penguins Don’t Wear Pink
Jeffrey Turner
Beaming Books

Henry the penguin has a passion for pink things but best of all is his pink peaked cap, which he wears to school every day. The other animals’ teasing causes him to do some thinking 

and he decides to wear a hat of a different colour. Nobody comments on his green hat the following day, nor the blue one or the orange one on the next two days. Henry has another think and decides that no matter what his fellow students might say, he’ll wear the pink hat again on the fourth day. Will the response be any different this time? What do you think?

Brightly illustrated this is a sweet story about having the confidence to be yourself, able to wear any colour you choose, no matter who you are or what others think.

A helpful book to start a discussion with young children.

Missing Violet
Kelly Swemba and Fabian Faiallo
Beaming Books

The young narrator of this story talks of her best friend Violet, as ‘an expert at spreading sunshine. Her healing hugs made falls hurt less.’ So when Violet becomes very sick and then dies unexpectedly, the narrator experiences ‘a swirl of feelings all at once’. 

We share her emotions ‘My heart pinched. My insides ached’ first through a rainbow of swirling colours 

and then when she visits a counsellor, through separate colours: orange for bewilderment, red for anger, blue for deep sadness.

When she turns to her mum for further help, the two of them paint pictures of the two girls together and decorate a special box in which to keep them. Still the tears come so she tries talking to her classmates and discovers that they too miss Violet. They decide to say goodbye to their friend by writing notes to Violet and blowing bubbles in the school playground in a gentle farewell ritual. 

With its hopeful ending, this story of loss and grief is pitched just at the right level for young children.

The Window

jillrbennett Leave a comment

The Window
Laura Gehl and Udayana Lugo
Studio Press

Written from the child’s viewpoint this is a beautiful, sensitively written (Laura Gehl) and illustrated ( Udayana Lugo) heartfelt story about a little girl and her relationship with her beloved grandfather in the last weeks and days of his life.

Visiting Grandpa alongside the child during his long-term illness, readers share the love that exists between the two as they look at the view from the window of her grandpa’s hospital room and talk about the things they’ll do together on the beach they see below, when as the little girl says, the old man is better.

That’s not what happens though for Grandpa gets progressively worse and eventually dies. It’s a very sad time as we see, but at the end there’s an unexpected, yet very powerful, heartening twist to this poignant tale. It’s one that serves as a reminder that although no longer physically with us, loved ones are always present.

At the end of the book are some helpful, supportive words of advice from psychotherapist Dr Sharie Coombes about how to talk with a child about the death of a much loved family member.