Emma Meets the Grief Monster
Written by Gail Trauco, international bestselling author of Conquering Grief from Your Own Front Porch, the Emma Meets the Grief Monster series is an eight-volume set that takes a young girl through the seven stages of grief. In the first volume, Emma, who loves playing basketball with her friends, comes home to find her mother crying as her father walks out the door with suitcases in hand. After escaping to her room to cry alone, Emma encounters the Grief Monster, who tells her what she is feeling is normal and okay. The Grief Monster also tells her she will be going through seven phases of grief: fear, denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance, depression, and forgetfulness.
While the first book ends on this unhappy note, the remaining books lead Emma through the stages of grief until she realizes that her life is going to be okay and things have slowly worked themselves out. Addressing the issues of divorce, along with its physical and emotional effects on the children experiencing it, the Emma Meets the Grief Monster series is a great way to open the discussion with children experiencing a similar loss.
Click here to read our feature, "When Children Face Grief," which includes insight from Mark Smith, camp director of Camp BraveHearts, a grief day camp in Memphis.