Grief Support

Resources For Children

A Book for You From Kids Like You – Fernside
This is a workbook filled with many useful children’s activities that can help children grow through loss. It contains wisdom and drawings from other grieving children.

A Child’s View of Grief – by Alan D. Wolfelt
This is an easy to read booklet that explains how children and adolescents grieve after someone they love dies, and offers helpful guidelines for care giving adults.

A Visit to the Cemetery – by Jessie Flynn
Anyone wishing to teach children that death is the end of the physical body-but not of love- will welcome this tender, even joyful book.

Balloon Memories – An activity book for children Helping Children Cope with the Loss of a Loved One – by William C. Kroen
This book helps adults to assist children at different stages and ages, and provides specific strategies that can support children through the grief process.

Helping Children Grieve and Grow – by Donna O’Toole
This is an easy to read book all about children and grief. It covers a wide range of topics from how children grieve and how to help them.

A Keepsake Book of Special Memories – by Laurie Van-Si & Lynn Powers
This book provides many ideas on how children can take an active role in their own healing and can gather memories that can last for a lifetime.

How I Feel Coloring Book – by Alan D. Wolfelt
This delightful coloring book helps children 3 to 8 recognize and express many intense feelings of grief.

How It Feels When a Parent Dies – by Jill Krementz
This book combines stories of 18 youth ages 7 to 16. The young people openly speak of their feelings, their trials and even of eventual triumphs following the death by illness or suicide of a parent.

Keys to Helping Children Deal with Death and Grief – by Joy Johnson
An experienced bereavement specialist tells parents how to explain the concept of death in ways that will be understandable to children.

Lifetimes – the Beautiful Way to Explain Death to Children – by Bryan Mellonie and Robert Ingpen
This book explains death in a caring and beautiful way. “Lifetimes” tells that dying is as much a part of living as being born. While it acknowledges that death sometimes happens out of the natural order, it remains a part of the human experience.

So Much to Think About – When Someone You Care About Has Died – An Activity Book for Children by Fred Rodgers
This activity book for young children is designed so that children who have experienced the death of someone they care about can learn about what has happened and express their feelings.

Talking About Death – A Dialogue Between Parent and Child – by Earl A. Grollman
How do you explain the death of a loved one to a child? Earl Grollman’s classic “Talking About Death” provides sensitive and helpful advice for families coping with loss.

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf – by Leo Buscaglia
A metaphorical story that ever so gently and beautifully uses nature and the changing seasons of life to explain how death can be seen as a natural part of living.

The Saddest Time – by Norma Simon
This story picture book uses three individual stories of children dealing with the news of a death of someone important to them.

What Happens When Someone Dies? – by Jessie Flynn
This is a friendly book that combines drawings with simple, clear information to help young children understand what death means. It gives specific things children can do to remember and commemorate.

What is Cremation? – Jessie Flynn
This is a comforting book to help young children understand why people choose cremation and just what to expect during and following cremation.

When Dinosaurs Die – A Guide to Understanding Death – by Laurie Krasny Brown and Marc Brown
An informative, comforting book that allows adults to enter into the world of children to explain death in a way that holds children’s attention.

Resources For Teens

Facing Change – A book about Loss and Change for Teens – by Donna O’Toole
This booklet gives information to help teens understand their losses and discover creative coping strategies for dealing with them. All kinds of losses experienced by teenagers are listed and validated.

Living When a Young Friend Commits Suicide – or Even Starts Talking About It – by Earl A. Grollman & Max Malikow
This is a straightforward, compassionate book – one that gives comfort and expert ideas for helping yourself.

Suicide: Teens Talk to Teens – by Marion Crook
This is a readable-sized book with a direct message that will appeal to its audience; teens contemplating suicide. This book would be a good resource for anyone working with or concerned about teens.

Please Listen to Me – Your Guide to Understanding Teenagers and Suicide – by Marion Crook
This book provides practical information and addressing sensitive questions such as “How do I tell if my teenager is considering suicide?” and “How do I talk to my teenager about suicide?”.

Straight Talk About Death for Teenagers – How to Cope with Losing Someone You Love – by Earl Grollman
This book is written for teens whose friend or relative has died. This book is very helpful in supporting teens as they grieve. It explains and reassures teens about what to expect and what helps when you are grieving.

Resources for Adults

Tear Soup – by Pat Schwiebert and Chuck DeKlyen
This book is a creative, whimsical but practical metaphor for grief and is for “kids” of all ages for the wisdom of its messages in warm inviting language.

A Man You Know is Grieving – by James Miller and Thomas R. Golden
Here is an example of insight into a masculine healing grief process- not a gender issue but a style. A resource filled with helpful practical ideas to help yourself as well as others heal.

Beyond Grief – A Guide For Recovering From the Death of a Loved One – by Carol Staudacher
Ms. Staudacher’s personal experience led to her involvement in, and dedication to, the continued exploration of all facets of the bereavement process.

Butterfly Blessings – A Little Book About Dying – by Clare Scott
Butterfly Blessings is a book that shows us how to diminish our fear of dying and put life back into living.

Creating Meaningful Ceremonies – by Alan D. Wolfelt
This book explores the ways in which heartfelt funeral ceremonies help the bereaved begin to heal. It provides practical ideas for authentic, personalized and meaningful funeral ceremonies. An inspiring guide for clergy, and others who help grieving families plan and carry out funerals.

Companion Through Darkness – by Stephanie Ericsson
As a result of the author’s own loss experience, grief is looked at in a compassionate way that reassures the reader of the complex emotions of grief.

Choices – When Your Child is Dying – by Sheila Lee
This sensitive book, written from the perspective of parents, will empower other parents faced with a bewildering set of decisions to make at an extremely difficult time.

Comforting Those Who Grieve – a Guide for Helping Others – by Doug Manning
This is a practical book offering caring ways to help those in mourning cope with their loss and recover from pain.

Customs and Traditions in Times of Death and Bereavement – by Kathy Cloutier
A concise, informative book on death and bereavement designed to help people understand and assist those from varying denominations and belief systems.

“Dear God It Hurts”; Comfort for Those Who Grieve – by William and Patricia Coleman
This book has short readings that capture the many sides of human loss – with a common element that God is with us.

Genesis – A Personal Guide Through Grief – by John Kennedy Saynor
Genesis has been written to help people who are grieving understand what they are experiencing – you will learn how to deal with your thoughts and emotions so that life will feel worth living again.

Grief Climb Toward Understanding – Phyllis Davis
This is a compassionate book filled with vignettes that share a mother’s struggle with her son’s tragic death along with insights and practical information for the readers.

Healing After the Suicide of the Loved One – by Ann Smolin and John Guinan
To make the healing path less isolating and frightening, this book provides markers and practical insights garnered from those who have journeyed before.

Healing the Grieving Heart – Practical Ideas for Families, Friends, and Caregivers – by Alan Wolfelt
This is a small, easy to read book with concise, compassionate information on every page that will help you assist a grieving friend or family member.

Helping the Grieving Students: A Guide for Teachers – by The Dougy Center
This is a practical guide to dealing with death in the classroom.

Healing Your Grieving Heart – 100 Practical ideas – by Alan D. Wolfelt
The small book is easy to read and offers here and now suggestions for helping yourself mourn well so that you may go on to live well and love well again.

“I Don’t Know What to Say”… How to Help and Support Someone Who is Dying – by Dr. Robert Buckman
This is an authoritative and empathetic guide offering friends and family practical advice as they cope with a terminally ill loved one.

Living With Loss – Meditations for Grieving Widows – by Ellen Sue Stern
Small book filled with supportive and empowering reflections.

Life After Loss – by Bob Diets
This is a practical book that offers a roadmap to assist people to work through their grief.

Living When a Loved One Has Died – by Earl. A. Grollman
This inspirational little book can be of immense assistance to anyone grieving. It is filled with reassuring short poetic messages.

Letters to Stephen – by James Taylor
A personal and moving account of the day-to-day struggles of a father dealing with death of his son.

On Life After Death – by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
This book is a collection of four inspirational essays drawn from Kubler-Ross’ years of working with the dying and the afterlife.

Stress, Loss and Grief – by John Schneider
This comprehensive, highly readable, pragmatic guide to dealing with stress, loss and grieving is holistic in its approach.

Survivors of Suicide – by Rita Robinson
This book will be helpful for anyone who is a suicide survivor or members of the general public who want to help and understand issues associated with suicide.

The Bereaved Parent – by Harriet Sarnoff Schiff
A practical, reassuring book on how to cope with the death of a child and how to go about rebuilding the lives of survivors.

Understanding Grief – Helping Yourself Heal – by Alan D. Wolfelt
A compassionate guide to coping with the death of a loved one – this book helps bereaved people move toward healing by encouraging them to explore their unique journeys into grief and mourning.

When Your Partner Dies – by Richard Stanton
These are stories of women who have lost their husbands and how they explored ways to cope and heal themselves.

When a Child Dies – by Carol Pregent
This book helps you look at your own grief and uses stories from the gospel as well as other practical ways to help yourself through the river of grief.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People – by Harold S. Kushner
This is a wonderful book offering a moving and humane approach to life’s suffering.

When Someone Dies: What You Can Do – Phyllis Davis
This booklet is adapted from her book Grief: Climb Toward Understanding, a reassuring story filled with crisp verse vignettes that are gently combined with practical information and checklists

When Someone is Seriously Ill: What You Can Do – Phyllis Davies
This booklet is adapted from her book Grief: Climb Toward Understanding, a reassuring story filled with crisp verse vignettes that are gently combined with practical information and checklists.

Words on Calm
Words on Hope
Words on Solitude and Silence
Words on Strength and Perseverance These four little books from Helen Exley contain profound words from the world’s greatest thinkers to help in times of trouble.

Words to Comfort – Words to Heal – compiled by Juliet Mabey
Poems and meditations for those who grieve. Magazine – Bereavement Magazine & Grief Magazine Both of these magazines contain a wealth of information for both those who are grieving and for those who assist people in their grief.

Video's

The Grit and Grace of Being a Caregiver – 36 minutes, VHS format, Color Nature Photography This video gives suggestions to help family members or professionals care for themselves as they are caring for others. Recommended for all who are caregivers to the seriously ill, hospice staff and for families.Maintaining Balance as You Care for Others – 36 minutes

Living When a Loved One Has Died – Earl Grollman – 19 minutes

Understanding Grief: Kids Helping Kids – 14 minutes

Funeral Services in 1990’s: Serving People, Serving Needs – 8 minutes

David’s Story; A Teen Suicide – 28 minutes

When Your Loved One is Dying – 17 minutes