Death in a good book

Burnt to death in Africa, stabbed to death in Texas, blown to death in a warzone, died of cancer in a nursing home. Today’s young people have death thrust down their throats on every news bulletin. Death is part of their life in a much more graphic way than it once was. It used to be grandparents and pets; it’s now kids on their street. 

There seem to be two main reactions. It’s either “not real enough because it’s so commonplace” – which allows them to shoot everyone in sight on a computer screen – or “so real it needs numbing and defending against” – which means you get comments like “I don’t even want to think about it”. 

Recent research suggests that discussing death and dying in biological terms is the best way to alleviate fear of death in young children aged four to eight. But I do ask myself how far this finding can be applied to any age group. Two of my clients have been very bothered about their own possible demise and the violence they live among. Their fear is real. Death is both known and unknown. Which kind of talking would be appropriate here? 

Perhaps fiction is a good place to start. A place where feelings and facts can be targeted in the displacement, without trivialising or shunning. 

However, an article in The Times asks whether the new “grim-lit” for kids is addressing death properly. It cites a few of the more curious novels, such as Before I Die, The Bower Bird and The Lovely Bones. The children’s author Meg Rosoff is quoted as saying that death in literature should be there for a reason, not just to make the reader weep. She calls books narrated from beyond the grave “the very worst sentimental crime”. I agree they’re not too helpful therapeutically!

But for me, Jacqueline Wilson’s new book passes the test. In My Sister Jodie, Jodie’s fatal fall from the school tower is observed and reported by her younger sister. The death is in the context of their close relationship, and the emotions, reactions and message are entirely in keeping with the finality of death – with some inkling of hope for a future without the physical presence of the person. You can’t get more accurate than this, surely? Wilson herself, in a videoclip, says she hopes the reader will feel sad but comforted at the end.

Likewise, the death of Lee Scorseby in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials reflects the fact that the essence of a person is not their body – Lee’s preserved body provides food for his bear companion, Iorek Byrnison, when he needs it. Wrapped up in fiction, this scene and others offer a way of thinking about the nature of death before it happens in reality.

Perhaps we should be reading some of the many books published for teens and children these days, and pondering which events would make useful talking points in therapy when appropriate. It would be another way of putting the topic “out there” to be discussed when they worry aloud about death. Although not all children read books, of course.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has a useful leaflet on children’s needs around the topic of death, which can be downloaded and distributed free of charge. And I’m also pleased to see a new edition of Atle Dyregrov’s Grief in Children. It has it all: research, case examples, information for schools on handling a death, and all the main facts for therapists.