Resources

ABC Grief, UK | www.abcgrief.co.uk

• An enormously informative website for adults bereaved as children to find resources, podcasts and books to help them appreciate and understand the nuances and complexity of unresolved childhood grief.

Skylight Trust | www.skylight.org.nz

• How to talk to children about death

Kenzies’s Gift | www.kenziesgift.com

• Funded support for children and young people, including a page of links to Kenzie’s Gift’s therapists in Aotearoa New Zealand

• Articles and resources for children and young people, as well as the adults support them

• Extremely useful support kits (for a small donation) tailored to various subjects, situations and settings, including schools

• Grief diaries and grief kits to help young people improve their understanding of their emotions, and retain memories of the person who has died

Canteen | www.canteen.org.nz

• A wide range of Supports for young people aged 12-24 whose lives are affected by cancer (they have it, or a family member…)

• Free access to Therapeutic programmes

• Lots of cancer-related and grief-related Resources, links and advice, including a grief booklet

Rei Kõtuku | www.reikotuku.org.nz

• Rei Kõtuku primarily provides free palliative care services to children around New Zealand, but can also take referrals to help parents and schools support bereaved children

Tony’s Place | www.tonysplace.org.nz

• For people of all ages bereaved by suicide, including support for children and teens

Aoake te Rā | www,aoaketera.org.nz

• Offers free brief therapeutic supports (6 hours/sessions), funded by the Ministry of Health, to anyone affected by suicide at any stage of their life, as part of a range of services

The Grief Centre, NZ | www.griefcentre.org.nz

• Supporting children through a loss

• Also counselling, with the potential for some funded or subsidised sessions

Child Bereavement UK | www.childbereavementuk.org

• Supporting bereaved children and young people

• For schools – supporting a bereaved pupil

• When someone is not expected to live

• Sudden death

• When a parent dies – supporting your child

• When someone special dies – downloadable leaflets for children (aged under 7, and 7-11) and young people

• Short, animated videos around death and bereavement, and supporting children – good for children and adults

• Ways young people can support their grieving friends

Winston’s Wish (UK) | Winstonswish.org

• Grief support for kids – Interactive resources and videos about grief aimed at younger children.

Spring with Sarah | www.springwithsarah.com

• A good Resources page including 21 things to say to someone grieving, and 12 tips to support someone who is grieving

The National Centre for Childhood Grief, Australia | www.childhoodgrief.org.au

• Kids and grief

• “The Science of Resilience – why some children can thrive despite adversity”. March 2025. Harvard School of Education.

• Understanding Rangatahi Who Have Experienced Adversity. Brainwave Trust, April 2025. While it doesn’t mention bereavement, it could be useful to see the impacts adversity can have on teenagers, and some of the recommended supports.

• Successful Children Who Lost A Parent — Why Are There So Many Of Them? An interesting NPR article about how childhood adversity, such as bereavement, can create “eminent orphans”, a term created by writer Malcolm Gladwell. 

• Butterfly Counselling – Five stages of grief for kids. While there are no “stages of grief”, this article is interesting because it shows different ways a child’s grief can show (or not show). 

• New York Life Foundation: State of Grief Report. While not New Zealand, and not specifically child-focused, this is an interesting insight into “the bereavement landscape” in the United States, and “highlights the ongoing need, but also a growing desire, for holistic help and support for those experiencing grief…” 

• “I couldn’t say ‘My Mother’ without crying” an article by Hope Edelman, the author of Motherless Daughters, published in the New York Times, 25 August 2019. 

• Voices of adults bereaved as children Voices of adults bereaved as children, a report by Winston’s Wish in the UK, released in 2019, based on interviews with eleven adults whose parents died when they were young. (Note, Winston’s Wish is set to be amalgamated with Child Bereavement UK.)

There are many picture books produced around death and grief and emotional literacy for young children, but unfortunately very few books for older children. 

And while there are hundreds of books generally about grief, and the grief from losing a parent as an adult, there are very few books written specifically for adults bereaved of their parents as children. That is why I am writing these stories. 

Here is a selection of what is available internationally. For that reason the links are to Amazon, but do search within your own local bookseller. 

• Beginnings and Endings and Lifetimes in Between by Bryan Mellonie & Robert Ingpen

  This is a matter-of-fact book about how every living being has a lifetime. It uses nature (e.g. birds and insects) to discuss this concept. This book can be used as a general introduction to death and dying and how it’s a part of life. A helpful resource for ECE centres and schools to be read to all children as a foundation, ideally before a child has personal experience of the death of a loved one.

• Te Wai, Tama and the Moon by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, illustrated by Isobel Jo Te Aho-White

  This is a beautiful story using te ao Māori, which employs the playful imagination of young children to tell the story of Te Wai and his friend Tama. We learn how whānau and friends play a vital role in supporting Te Wai through the sickness and death of his mum.

• The Grief Wave by Trace Moroney 

  This helpful book uses the very apt analogy of waves in the ocean as being similar to how we feel grief. Useful for both children and adults, it sets up the ability for parents/caregivers and children to talk about grief and how it can be different for each person, and even different each day. 

• Finn’s Feather by Rachel Noble & Zoey Abbott 

  This is a heart-warming story about Hamish, whose brother Finn has died. This book provides a view of grief from a child’s perspective, and how play continues to be of key importance to children who are experiencing bereavement. 

• The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld 

  This book has a powerful yet simple message – that sometimes just being there and listening to a child, without adult words or questions, is the most helpful thing you can do. 

• The Invisible String by Patrice Karst, illustrated by Joanne Lew Vriethoff

  This clever book talks about the concept of continuing connections and relationships with people who we can’t always see. The story provides a very helpful way to talk to children about how they can continue their connection with someone they love, no matter what. See also The Invisible String Workbook, and The Invisible String Backpack about overcoming obstacles.

• What Feelings Do When No One’s Looking by Tina Oziewicz & Aleksandra Zajac

  This is a book that cleverly couples the label of the emotion with how it can make us feel. This book builds understanding of the labelled emotion, along with an action that helps children understand what that emotion actually means.

• How do I feel? A Dictionary of Emotions for Children Rebekah Lipp, Craig Phillips

  Each page of this book describes a different emotion, which help children identify what they’re feeling and why they might be feeling that way. 

For older children and young people

• How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed. A Journal for Grief by Megan Devine

  This practical and informative book/journal could be incredibly useful for bereaved teens and adolescents. It has a pragmatic approach with factual information, tools and strategies, as well as space for the young person to record their own thoughts/ideas.

• You Are Not Alone by Cariad Lloyd

  The author of this book was 15 when her dad died. She wrote this as an adult looking back to her teenage years, and how her father’s death affected her. It is a helpful guide when facing the range of emotions that come with grief, and her writing supports the difficult process of facing our feelings throughout bereavement.

For adults bereaved as children

• Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman

  First published in 1994 and still in print, this is one of the very few books around to address childhood parental loss, but only for daughters who lost their mothers. Hope Edelman’s mother died when she was seventeen, and here she investigates the lasting effects of such a loss, built on hundreds of interviews with other ‘motherless daughters’. 

• The Loss that is Forever by Maxine Harris, PhD

  Dr Harris draws together interviews and writings from well-known figures who have experienced the death of a parent to “illustrate how themes of loss and survival weave through the lives of those who have lost a parent in childhood”. First published in 1996.

Understanding the end-of-life process

• With the End in Mind, by Dr Kathryn Mannix. A wonderfully empathic, knowledgeable and no-fuss approach to end-of-life stories, Dr Mannix’s book reveals what a ‘good’ death can be, especially when faced directly, with love and honesty. It also has a really great chapter on how to talk about death with children and young people, and how to prepare them for the death of someone they love.