Friday, 26 February 2010

Dear Grandma (Bunny)

It's come to my attention that this post about Dear Grandma Bunny by Dick Bruna ranks near the top of a google search. If you have come looking for bereavement information, try the Childrens' Bereavement Charity. They also have a review of this book here. God Bless.


We've been reading M'laddo Dick Bruna's Miffy books as his bedtime read recently. We got a boxed set from the book people for a paltry sum of earnings a while back and frankly I was getting bored of Thomas the Tank Engine stories.

Most of them are ace, he particularly likes Miffy at the Gallery. Wifey grabbed one for last nights story without really taking in the cover. Dear Grandma Bunny isn't really a suitable bedtime read you see.

The cover should have been a give away but the story inside that unfolds is a little more gruesome. Grandma Bunny lies cold, unbreathing and dead in her bed, probably fouling the sheets in her dying moments (the book is blessedly unclear on the last point but vivid on the rest). Grandma Bunny looks well and truly brown bread in her open casket but just to be sure they nail it shut and bury her.

I'm still unsure whether the subject matter is unsuitable for very little children or not. Very very little children have no concept of death and as they get a bit older do lack the baggage we hang upon it but even so, they have enough to worry about with pre-school, no lollipop without eating their broccoli first and little sisters puking madly to have to worry about the abstract of Grandma (Bunny) dying any time soon.

So Grandma Bunny has been placed aside from the rest of the Miffy books for the moment since we're primarily using them as a bedtime read rather than anything particularly thought provoking in an existential manner.
Posted by Alex Walsh at 12:19

8 comments:

  1. This kind of book is great as a tool for helping children process events we find it difficult to explain ourselves but I would reserve them for when the event has actually happened rather than to introduce them to one of life's sadness' so early. Keep the book on the shelf out of reach and I hope very very much that your children and my own will be well beyond the Miffy reading years before we need to explain about dying grandparents.
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  2. not sure i'd want to broach this one with my 3.5 year old. I see no need for them to learn about death this young if they don't have to.
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  3. I think you should show this Miffy book to your child/children at the age of 6 or 7, due to the fact that you do not want to show sadness too early. Tell them at an age that they will understand death and the fact that the world isn't perfect.
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  4. it is sick and another thing in the jackie wilson book cookie there is a bit where a pet bunny is found dead without a head a dad calls it a bloody thing , someone is called a jumped up little tart and someone is called a nosy git so it is a no no if you hate disturbing things and dear grandma bunny seems like a sick book ......maybe dick bruna could make a morbid miffy story to go like this miffy is killed by a terrorist. one day miffy went on the underground train and someone detonated a nail bomb next to miffy and miffys guts,legs,arms and head flew onto the crowd and killed all those other disgustingly ugly miffy type bunnies as well
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  5. yay miffy died brawl taunts poop rules
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  6. Well, maybe not the best book to read as a bedtime story. But for many children who had to go through a death in the familly probably it is a really good help.Another beautifull book about death, this one very poetic and beautifull for adults too is Duck, Death and the Tulip by Wolf Erlbruch
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  7. I think the point of this book is to help communicate about death when it happens, perhaps not before. If a grandmother or grandfather dies and a granchild is attached to them, it might be difficult to explain this. I think this book is made largely for this type of circumstance. Perhaps in Holland it's more common to find three generations under a roof, so that's why Bruna wrote it.
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  8. This would have been a perfect book 6 months ago for my neices (3yr and 2yr)to have become aware about loss without emotional baggage. Death and bereavement is something that will happen to all kids even if its just their pet fish. Its better to gently prepare them for it. Now with their father dying it's too late. Which of us is going to be able to read it to them now without falling to pieces?
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