Always and Forever

Lovely story personifies animals, beautiful illustrations. I've had this in my closet for several years. A parent of my 6 yr old's classmate passed away suddenly, and a counselor was scheduled to speak with the class so that they might know how to speak with their classmate, and have some understanding of the loss. I sent this book in for the teacher to share with the class while the student was away. She too felt that this was helpful. The book contains touching moments that children can relate to, yet understand that moving on and good memories can follow. Children notice so much. My daughter noticed a detail (that I had missed entirely) at the end with baby birds chirping in a tree...in the deceased fox's hat...very sweet indeed. A great addition to a library, and tool.

I bought this book at the school book fair, since I liked the pictures and thought the topic would be handy, should anything unfortunate happen in our family. Later on, we had to put our 16-year-old family dog to sleep. We have two children in the house, who were 11 and 10 years old at the time. I showed them the book, and we all ended up reading it together on the couch. These are kids who were in middle school at the time, and they found a lot of comfort in this book. I couldn't read it without crying by the end, but that's ok. The kids were crying too. It hits exactly the right note, showing the family's grief and initial feeling that it will never get any better. The author also shows how the family's sadness affects them, and that dropping out of life, so to speak, only makes it worse. When another friend comes over and they talk about the happy times, they begin to feel happy again, without feeling guilty. In the end, they each find a special way to remember Fox and keep his memory alive. It sends the perfect message to anybody who has lost a loved one. I also recommended this book to my cousin, whose 9-year-old daughter lost a classmate, and she said that it helped them a lot, a speaked a healthy conversation about death. Aside from the "death" topic, I would recommend that parents buy this book to have in their library, even if their child has not suffered a loss. You never know what will happen, and it is a beautiful story regardless of circumstances.

I purchased this book for my children's library because I thought that it would be a good way to explore the loss of a loved one. The illustrations are so vibrant and expressive that even without words they depict the story. I also gave a copy to a family of grown children who found it helpful and compelling. I wish that I had had this book when I lost my Dad as a little girl.

We checked this book out at the library. My daughters had lost a close friend and out of all the books we checked out, this one was the very best. The reason why is because this book focuses on the people left behind. It is not about where the person who died went, or questions regarding death. It is a book about the grief process of the people who are left behind that love that person. Because the characters in the book are animals...it feels less "real" and allows a child to explore their own feelings with you and relate to this story in a non-threatening way. Most books that we read seemed to either upset them or make them angry and withdraw even more but this was one of the few books that helped them to talk about how they were feeling. I highly recommend this book if you need to use a story to show that grief is normal and that eventually they will be "o.k.". We bought a copy for our family to keep because death is a part of life and I know that we will go through this again.

This is a simple story using animals to tell the tale of their grief over losing a friend. This book starts with the last time they saw the friend before he died. They discuss feeling sad when they think of missing their friend. They initially want to stay home all the time and not do anything that reminds them of their friend. They wonder how life will go on without him. They are initially sad thinking about all of the things they will miss. Another friend gets them to see that they still have memories. Soon they are sharing memories and laughing at silly things their friend used to do. They finally get to the point in their grief that they begin to DO things again & have fun remembering their friend. Great book for little ones. I bought it for a 4 year old who is losing his mom. I know it will still be appropriate when he is older and may need to read it again.