A Guide to Grief

Gr 5 Up–A tome for late elementary and middle grade children on processing and living with grief. Thanatologist Imperi provides tools to deal with shadowloss (experiences like moving to a new town or having parents divorce), as well as deathloss (death of a loved one). The focus is on living with grief and processing emotions instead of trying to ‘fix’ feelings or force a grief experience to look a specific way. There are also chapters to help navigate when a friend or an adult is grieving. Some of the content seems like it would be more applicable to an adult who is reading the book along with a young person, but it is integrated in a fairly accessible way. There is also a section for caretakers and a list of resources, including international hotlines. Jagoe’s illustrations are limited and in black and white, but they do make use of creative fonts to maintain visual interest throughout the book. Artwork depicts children with a variety of gender identities, races, cultural backgrounds, and religions.