The boy Johan grew up with the dog Ajax. But dogs grow up and age much faster than people, and one day Ajax died. The boy was very upset…
The boy Johan grew up with the dog Ajax. But dogs grow up and age much faster than people, and one day Ajax died. The boy was very grieving… The Scandinavian writer Ulf Stark wrote a sad, lyrical and bright book about love, death, the loss of a loved one… But not all parents are ready to read it with their children.
Open World, 40 p.
Expert Commentary
Irina Lesskis: “Children think about death very early”
Irina Lesskis — psychologist, gestalt therapist, coordinator of the socio-psychological service of the Children’s Hospital Charitable Foundation at Children’s Clinical Hospital No. 9
“When is the right time to start talking to children about death? Talking for no reason, if the child does not ask questions, is probably not necessary. But it is important to know: the topic of death begins to excite most children very early, at about three or four years. A child may experience the loss of someone close, or may simply see a dead bird on the street. At the age of four or five, almost all children play funeral — they bury dead beetles, butterflies, birds. So they tame death, learn not to be afraid of it. In fact, even adults do not know what to do with death. Different cultures have a variety of rituals: people cry, and rejoice, and bury in the ground, and burn the dead … And all this helps to adapt to the reality of death, to survive it, but not alone, but together with other people. Ulf Stark and artist Stina Wiersen show in their book the first encounter of a child with the theme of death. The only thing that bothers me is the ending. Trying to soften the sad topic, the authors came up with an artificial happy ending (a new puppy is born from the shadow of an old dog). In vain. Death does not have a happy ending. And we have to admit that death is final and there is no other way but to accept it and mourn. Stark’s book allows adults to calmly, without strain, talk to a child about this natural part of our lives, which children often learn about before we have time to notice it.