By Jackie Azusa Kramer, Illustrated by Cindy Derby
Parents and teachers often need books on the subject of death to share with children. As a librarian I have found that choosing a book on death is a very personal matter. What I may like, may not work for you. It is a hard, tender and bittersweet topic so I encourage you to read several picture books on this subject and then decide what you might feel comfortable using with your student or child.
This is a picture book that deals with a boy’s grief over his mother’s death. It opens with six wordless pages of illustrations that show a gorilla, a metaphor for the weight and pain of grief, slowly walking and then observing a boy and his father, and others, as they leave the funeral and then gather together afterwards. What follows is a series of questions about death, dying, and living that the boy asks of the gorilla. The questions are simple and yet profound, as are the answers. On a double spread of softly painted pictures, we see the boy and the gorilla slowly walking by the water. “Where did Mom go? No one knows for sure. Maybe Mom’s here. She liked the waves.” The illustrations and the text are very well suited for this topic of grief. It is a calm, quiet and thoughtful book.