How to talk to kids about loss through a great children's book May 11, 2022 – Posted in: Books, Children – Tags: child, Children's Book, Fluffy
Do children come to terms with loss? Yes. Is it easy for them to manage? No. Can a children's book help children understand and accept loss and the grief or pain that comes with it? The answer is a big yes.
Jon J Muth's enlightening new picture book is based on an ancient Buddhist legend and includes Stillwater the Panda from his Caldecott Honor Book and New York Times bestselling Zen Shorts. It is published in Greek by Fourfouri publications under the title "Despina and the cup of sugar".
Despina moves to a new neighborhood with her beloved kitten, Socrates. They are best friends and inseparable. But when Socrates is involved in a car accident, Despina seeks out her wise friend, Aerinus. She is sure she will know how to bring Socrates back to life.
Aerinos tells Despina that he will need to bring him a special medicine. To do this, he must go to all the houses in the neighborhood and collect a cup of sugar. But there is one condition: the cup of sugar can only come from the home of someone who has never been touched by loss.
Despina goes from house to house and finds the familiar face of loss so frequent that she leaves no house without visiting. So he returns home and to Aerinos with an empty cup. As there is no man who has not felt the pain of loss.
How the girl figures out how this special drug works makes for a reassuring story of comfort and healing.
Muth's stunning interpretation of this Buddhist story is imbued with light and compassion. And it celebrates the fragile and sacred moments we all share with those we love.
With this tender and so apt book, you can ease a child's pain and grief over the loss of a beloved pet or a loved one. You can prepare it if you have a sick relative. Or you can just read it for your reading pleasure, as it deals with a universal theme that touches the soul of all of us and in this particular book it is so beautifully and so comfortingly given that even if the heroine didn't find the sugar in her cup, the this text leaves a special sweetness in the heart of those who read it at the end.
And if Aerinos did not succeed in what his little friend asked of him, he succeeded in something much more important: to reconcile her with the loss, to teach her to accept the sadness and pain that follows and to embrace these difficult feelings and above all all he taught her was to "keep alive" Socrates. As long as she has him in her heart, as long as she loves him and as long as his memory lasts in her life, Socrates' existence does not disappear, he merely changes form and properties.
This wonderful edition of "Despina and the cup of sugar" is published by Fourfouri publications, translated by Nikos Hatzopoulos.
