a book about a funeral?

[Tommy]

Have any of you ever found a good book to look at with your pre schooler about a funeral? I've found lots on Amazon about death and bereavement but I think I'm going to have to take DS1 to a funeral and I'm looking for some ideas about how to explain it to him. He's just 3.
Thanks in advance

Your library will probably be able to help. Ours has a section of "Life experience" type books for children of all ages and I'm sure I've seen a book on what happens when someone dies.

There's a great story called Badgers Parting Gifts in which all his frinds get together and talk about how they will remember Badger after he died. I've used it in the classroom with older children but it might help as a springboard for talking about the funeral with your ds. HTH .

Thanks for those ideas. Amazon has a huge list of books on the subject but I really wanted some personal reccommendations so these are great. DS1 is quite OK with the idea of people dying and going to heaven and that people are sad because of it (or he is in his 3 year old way!) but it's the actual funeral I'm a bit more concerned about - especially the "What's in the box?" question.

tommy- c of e vicar here!!
IF he asks maybe....
I would maybe try to explain the people don't need their bodies when they go to heaven. ie- bodies get old, they break sometimes they get broken early but that in heaven they get a new body...that can never ever get broken!!

In the cases of close relatives I often do one of two things...
1- meet children with a guradian at the funeral directors..to say goodbye to X (funeral directors often cover the box with a duvet and make them look like they are asleep in bed.
2- at the funeral let the children touch the 'box' and leave a card/teddy/flower actually on top of it.

We so often remove the body from the grieving process- by using the 'box'...I think it's best only to answer Q's he asks. But maybe you could take a picture he has coloured and leave it behind at the end of the service....or even pretend that you have given it to X (by delivering it before the funeral).....

children can be totally cool with funerals, he might not even blink! What is likely to be hardest for him is other peoples emotions.

HTH
(never had to do it with a child of my own...so not quite the same!)

Nice ideas Leah

My MIL died last year, but only DH went to the funeral - it was in the US, a few days after the death and not really practical for us all (5 kids) to go to.

Anyway, they have open casket visitation there, and my nieces - oldest 4 at the time - had no trouble hanging out in the actual room in the funeral home for 3 separate 3-hour sessions. They would happily talk to mourners about their grandmother on the table, or whatever.

Despite MIL being a big part of their lives, they don't seem to miss her as such. They just accept the inevitability of what happened.

Even my own kids, who did not attend the funeral, say that grandmother's body is in the ground, but that she is in heaven.

Thanks for these. I was chatting to some friends about it earlier and I remembered the book "The Didakoi" by Rumer Godden. Someone explained to Kizzy (main character) that her Gran's body was her "old clothes" that she didn't need in Heaven which I think makes a lot of sense.

Thanks all of you - very helpful