People
The world can be a hard and terrible place, and the world can be a fantastically whole and enlivening place. It’s both, and it’s where we live. We can survive the first, and even grow. We can rejoice in the second, and practice empathy.
It’s important to address topics of death and loss in middle grade because children do go through those experiences.
I think the best stories are a reflection of life, with all of its messiness, pain, and beauty.
Kids don’t grow up in a vacuum; they are terrified and confused and experience great loss, too. If we want our children to feel safe and to grow into emotionally intelligent adults, they need to know that death is a part of living.
They say to “write what scares you,” and I often use my own fears and anxieties as a guide of urgency for determining what topics people need help starting conversations about.
The truth is we need books that tackle tough topics because kids are already tackling them—whether they’re going through the issue themselves, supporting a friend, or just trying to understand how the world works.
Sometimes adults shy away from discussing tough topics with children, but those conversations are necessary.
These authors show readers that grief is not something to “get over,” but something to adapt to, to work through. It’s OK to not know how to feel, what to do, or what to say.
When Coach Feiler signed on to work as our high school library teaching assistant, he transformed the programming and the vibe.
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