A picture book conceived for terminally ill children, their families, and friends offers gentle and affirming acknowledgment of difficult feelings while recognizing the importance of relationships in the life of a child who is dying. Time with a child “listening or talking, sitting or holding, being noisy or being quiet. . . makes dying less hard” and “living easier.” Author/artist Chris Raschka’s spare narrative is gracefully illustrated in prints colored with watercolors. His images depict balloons rather than people, personified with faces that convey a range of emotions. A note from the founding director of Children’s Hospice International notes that the balloon imagery was inspired by the pictures created by terminally ill children across many cultures, who often draw a blue or purple balloon floating free as a way to depict their feelings about dying. An endnote offers simple advice for children who have a terminally ill friend. (Age 5 and older)

When a child becomes aware of his pending death (children tend to know long before the rest of us even want to consider it), and is given the opportunity to draw his feelings, he will often draw a blue or purple balloon, released and unencumbered, on its way upward. Health-care professionals have discovered that this is true, regardless of a child's cultural or religious background and researchers believe that this is symbolic of the child's innate knowledge that a part of them will live forever. . . .

 

In disarmingly simple and direct language, accompanied by evocative potato print illustrations, Raschka in conjunction with Children's Hospice International (CHI), creates a moving, sensitive book that is also a phenomenally useful tool to talk about death. The message of the book is clear: talking about dying is hard, dying is harder, but there are many people in your life who can help.

 

Children's Hospice International (CHI), a nonprofit organization founded in 1983, is paving the way for the establishment of children's hospice and related services worldwide.