Death Is Stupid by Anastasia Higginbotham (review)

This original little overview of bereavement follows a young boy in the aftermath of his grandmother’s death. Main text counterpoints speech bubbles as the boy interrogates the rampant platitudes (“She’s in a better place.” “Would I be in a better place if I died?”; “She can rest.” “Why can’t she rest HERE with me and still be alive?”). The main text goes on to talk accessibly about responses to grief, grief for pets, and ways of remembering the dead while the boy negotiates his loss in art and dialogue, eventually finding joy in tending his grandmother’s garden and learning her recipes. The iconoclastic approach will draw in kids who are grieving but are frustrated by other people’s clichéd (though well intentioned) attempts at support. While the writing has occasional awkward moments, it walks solidly through key experiences of death and bereavement; the focus on the legitimacy of grief for a lost pet is particularly useful. There’s a theatrical component to the collage artwork, which blends drawn faces and fabric scraps to make our somberly dressed brown-skinned protagonist and then adds photo elements and speech balloons on cut paper; the effect is a robustness that’s a refreshing contrast to condolence-card gauziness. The book ends with a section focusing on activities, which provide useful outlets and library-vexing invitations to write and paste in the book. It’s useful to have a picture-book-age volume that approaches death with some grit and irreverence, and this is a solid advance on the familiar gentle tales of pet loss.