Grandpa Died Last Night, as told by a young narrator about his own experiences when his grandfather dies, addresses the turmoil, fright, and confusion that invades a youngster’s life during the first hours after learning of the death of a loved one. Always treated with love, but, nonetheless, left with unanswered questions and drastic, not-understood changes in his own routine and surroundings, the narrator wades through common concerns and anxieties that frequently go unnoticed by adults who are coping with their own loss.
The narrator’s new experiences include the mundane to the life changing. He must deal with: his mother’s sadness; his mother’s lack of attention to his daily routines; his grandmother’s perceived indifference to him; unfamiliar people in familiar places; relatives arriving unexpectedly from far away; disposal of his grandfather’s possessions; learning about a funeral; and, perhaps most important, a growing sense of loss and understanding on his own part.
Grandpa Died Last Night is intended for a four-to-eight year old audience. It provides a jumping-off point for a parent when a child needs to dig deeper into what is happening at the time of a death in the family, and it leads the child to better understand that his own confusion and anxiety are not unique. Grandpa Died Last Night does not identify the sex of the child narrating the story nor does it address any particular religion other than a belief in God. It also doesn’t introduce the horrific possibility in his own mind that he, or a child, could die.
