The Books with an asterick [*] are available from the BC Children's Hospital Family Resource Library. Please call 604.875.2345, x.7644, to borrow these books.
Public libraries or local Hospice Societies may have some of the books on our lists. You may also find some at www.banyen.com or www.odinbooks.ca or www.wpspublish.com or www.robertspress.ca.
The library also provides internet searches for families, materials on normal growth and development, and referrals to support groups. Books not available through the Family Resource Library can be purchased at most major book stores or through the links on this site.

Books About Parent's Grief

After the Death of a Child*
Ann K. Finkbeiner
Examines long term parental grief, the differing ways mothers and fathers grieve, helps parents move through grief, go on with their lives but never forget their children who have died.

Dear Parents: Letters to bereaved parents*
Centering Corporation
Brief letters to bereaved parents from other parents and siblings of those who died and from caring others. They share thoughts, ideas, feelings, advice and care.

Finding your Way*
R. Reimer & Janne Davies
Discusses the process of grief for all members of a family. Includes poems and proverbs from numerous cultures.

Giving sorrow words: How to cope with grief and get on with your life*
Candy Lightner
Written by the founder of MADD. The approach is to explore and experience all facets of grief, and in so doing grow from it. Deals with issues such as getting the support you need, funeral and mourning customs and relationships.

Life Line: A Journal for Parents*
Joanie Reid
A mother grieves the loss of her son, and shares her hard-won wisdom. A journal to be written by parents as a tool to help them with grieving a miscarriage, stillbirth or early infanct death.

Living through personal crisis*
Ann Kaiser Stearns
The author makes use of case histories to document her insights. She explores the stresses that accompany personal trauma and provides strategies for healing as well as for evaluating progress through the grieving process.

The Bereaved Parent*
Harriet Sarnoll Schiff
The author offers advice to parents by using her own experience with her son. She explains how bereavement affects marriage, faith and relationship between siblings. The author deals with common feelings which accompany loss.

The Journey Through Grief: Reflections on Healing: Reflections on Grief
Dr. Alan D. Wolfelt

Understanding Grief: Helping Yourself Heal
Dr. Alan D. Wolfelt

A Grief Observed
C.S. Lewis
This British author is well known for the children's books on the tales of Narnia and learned treatises in Christian theology. This book reflects the author's efforts to record his own experiences of grief on notebooks that were lying around the house.

Beyond Sorrow: Reflections on Death and Grief
Herb Montgomery and Mary Montgomery
From their perspective as Christians, the authors suggest answers to questions about death and grief.

Dear Parents: Letters to Bereaved Parents*
Centering Corporation
Filled with compassion and love, this is a support group in book form. A collection of letters from bereaved parents who describe what they went through and how they coped.

Gone But Not Lost: Grieving the Death of a Child
David W. Wiersbe
As a pastor, Wiersbe cuts straight to the thoughts and feelings parents face soon after the death of a child.

Grief: Climb Toward Understanding
Phyllis Davies
The story of the author's loss of her son in a tragic accident is reflected in her poetry as she chronicles her struggles and determination to find healing through grief.

How Can I Help? 12 Things to Do When Someone You Know Suffers a Loss
James E. Miller
Discusses twelve things to do when someone you know suffers a loss and twelve things to remember when you have suffered a loss.

How to Go on Living When Someone you Love Dies
Therese A. Rando
In this compassionate, comprehensive guide, Therese Rando, bereavement specialist, leads the reader gently through the painful but necessary process of grieving.

How to Survive the Loss of a Child: Filling the Emptiness and Re-building Your Life
Catherine M. Sandersv
Outlines the five phases of bereavement and describes the symptoms Ð physical, emotional, and social Ð that one can expect to experience.

Living When a Loved One has Died
Earl A. Grollman
Consoling poems dealing with death and dying, written by an internationally known lecturer, writer, rabbi and grief counsellor whose work has helped hundreds of thousands of people.

Love, Mark*
Mark Scribani
Series of hand-printed letters on grief for children. Each letter describes different aspects or challenge of grief.

Meditations for Bereaved Parents
Judy Osgood
Mothers and fathers share their anger and their anguish, and share the insights that have enabled them to heal, to reinvest in living, to smile and love again.

O Susan: Looking Forward with Hope After the Death of a Child
James W. Angell
A true classic about the meaning of hope when confronted by the death of the young. Written by a father who suffered the tragic loss of his twenty-one year old daughter, Susan.

Parental Grief: Solace and Resolution
Dennis Klass
Explores the unique nature of parental bereavement and the process through which it can finally be resolved. Based on the author's own extensive research with peer support groups of grieving parents, the book examines how a parent's sense of self and relationships with others are redefined when a child dies.

Parental Loss of a Child
Therese Rando
Encompasses three aspects in its investigation of the parental loss of a child Ð the various responses to loss, the different types of bereavement experiences, and the intensity of different losses.

The Fall of the Sparrow: Of Death and Dreams and Healing
Kent. L. Koppelman
A compelling and honest story of one father's search for meaning and healing following the sudden death of his son.

The Worst Loss: How Families Heal from the Death of a Child
Barbara D. Rosof
Draws on families' own stories as well as groundbreaking research on grieving to answer questions on death and dying.

When Good-bye is Forever: Learning to Live Again After the Loss of a Child
John Bramblett
After the death of their youngest child, two-year-old Christopher, John Bramblett began writing this deeply moving and honest story of how he and his family coped with the nearly unbearable pain of losing their son.

Why are the Casseroles Always Tuna? A Loving Look at the Lighter Side of Grief
Published by Big A & Co.
Taking a lighter look at the most serious and painful journey that anyone will make, this book includes a collection of thoughts about the needs of the grieving.

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