Death Children's Book

An ongoing project to write and illustrate a book for children about a child and his relationship with death. The purpose of this project is to introduce death to the children as a natural occurrence of life and dismiss the popular image of death as a bad thing, to be feared and to run away from it.

As Morrie Schwartz has explained, in order to live the best of life one most first come to terms with death.

A piece of the story:

But as the child grew older so did the grandmother, with each passing year a step closer to Death's door. So the kid wouldn't notice this, it was sent away to the other side of town to live alone with its mother. Until one day the youngster received notice that the grandmother had finally opened Death's door.

The youngster's grandmother's funeral was held in the grand church that stood in the middle of town, and all the townspeople came to say their goodbyes, for she was loved by everyone for her big heart. Below the statue of an all loving god, laid a body that once held life and at the feet of the stairs below this body was it's grandchild, crying its eyes out. The people couldn't bear the crying with pain of someone so young and soon left running away from it. Only one thing stayed, he stood at the feet of the coffin looking tall and proper, gazing upon the lifeless body, it was Death.

With its eyes drowning in tears, the youngster raised his head to see for the first time the thing which everyone feared. Death looked away from the body to meet the gaze of the kid. Only compassion was found in Death's eyes, for it has been following the child all it's life and he before anyone knew more about death.