By Pat Wynne Jones
Hodder & Stoughton. 134 pages. £6.99
ISBN 0 340 67888 7
This is a short but eminently helpful book for anyone who is in contact with and trying to help a child who has experienced bereavement and loss.
It is clearly written in a way which makes a good grasp of the psychological and emotional effects of childhood bereavement accessible to all. The book is punctuated by a host of graphic illustrations and quotations which powerfully demonstrate the point being made. For example, a health visitor describes the grief of a five-year old girl at the death of her baby brother: 'I have never seen - and I hope I shall never see again - such suffering as I saw in that child that day. Her grief, so long repressed, tore from her like nothing I have seen before and wrenched her body into contortions in its savagery. She screamed a sound like an animal and howled before the spasm finally called to an end what she had been feeling.'
