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.