Books for Grieving Parents & Kids
Top Recommendations for Parents:
A Silent Sorrow, Pregnancy Loss: Guidance And Support For You And Your Family by Ingrid Kohn, et al. It has long been considered the "bible" for families seeking emotional and practical support after a pregnancy loss. Well organized, easily accessible, and filled with practical suggestions for each topic it covers, A Silent Sorrow is a positive first step for bereaved parents and their families, providing support and guidance to help resolve the grief and enable them to look to the future with hope.
Bereaved Children And Teens: A Support Guide For Parents And Professionals by Earl A. Grollman. This book includes suggestions for what to say and what not to say when explaining death to young children; how teenagers grieve differently from children and adults; how to translate Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish beliefs about death into language that children can understand; how ethnic and cultural differences can affect how children grieve; what teachers and parents can do to help bereaved young people at school; and activities, books, and films that help children and teens cope.
Empty Arms: Coping With Miscarriage, Stillbirth, And Infant Death by Sherokee Ilse. This classic book is one of the first given to newly bereaved parents to offer guidance in decision-making after their baby's death and to assist caregivers as they support families. Empty Arms encourages families to meet their babies and say hello before rushing to say goodbye.
Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: Surviving The Death Of Your Baby by Deborah Davis et al. Deborah Davis encourages grieving and strives to cover many different kinds of loss, including information on issues such as the death of one or more babies from a multiple birth, pregnancy interruption, and the questioning of aggressive medical intervention.
Grieving Dads: To The Brink And Back by Kelly Farley and David DiCola. A collection of candid stories from grieving dads that were interviewed over a two-year period.
Help, Comfort, And Hope After Losing Your Baby In Pregnancy Or The First Year by Hannah Lothrop. Through her own experience with miscarriage as well as through the voices of other parents who have suffered the devastation of their baby's death, psychologist Hannah Lothrop guides parents through the experience of bereavement, from shock and disbelief to renewal and growth.
When Hello Means Goodbye by Paul Kirk and Pat Schweibert. A guide for parents whose child dies before birth, at birth or shortly after birth. This sensitive booklet is a help to families during the early days of their grief.
Top Recommendations for Kids:
Ethan’s Butterflies: A Spiritual Book For Parents And Young Children After A Baby’s Passing by Christine Jonas Simpson. Spiritual comfort and understanding after a baby's passing was what Christine Jonas-Simpson was looking for in answering her young sons' difficult questions about their baby brother Ethan's passing. This book takes the parents and young children through the journey of deep sorrow and loss of a baby brother or sister from the moment of expectation of meeting them to the despair of knowing they passed, to the joy of reconnecting with them in another way.
My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss. Using a spectrum of vibrant colors and a menagerie of animals, this unique book allows children to express a range of human moods and emotions. This book is a wonderful way for parents to talk with children about their feelings.
Something Happened: A Book For Children And Parents Who Have Experienced Pregnancy Loss by Cathy Blanford and Phyllis Childers. This beautifully illustrated, simple, clear story is designed to help a young child understand what has happened when there has been a pregnancy loss.
The Fall Of Freddie The Leaf by Leo Buscaglia. For children ages 4 and up. This story is a warm, wonderfully wise, and strikingly simple story about a leaf named Freddie and how Freddie and his companion leaves change with the passing seasons, finally falling to the ground with winter's snow.