Abstract
The children found a dead bird.
They wrapped it up.
They buried it.
They said some words and felt sad.
They brought flowers for a few days.
Then they forgot.
This is the theme of the story in the first modern, in-print, actual hold-in-your-hands children's book about grief in my memory—The Dead Bird, by Margaret Wise Brown. It was dear to me because she wrote the first edition the year I was born, 1938, making me one of the gray-haired grandmothers and leaving Wise Brown dead now for more than 45 years. When my husband, Marv, and I founded Centering Corporation in 1977, The Dead Bird was the only book we could find for children. I'm sure there were others; we just didn't find them. They were hidden. Grief wasn't “in” then, and definitely not for children.
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