Good-Bye, Vivi! Book

When Granny's beloved canary Vivi dies, the family comes to accept it, as well as the idea that some day they will lose Granny as well.

Children's Literature

This picture book presentation of familial death for young children is translated from the German, illustrated by a native of Czechoslovakia, now living in Florence, Italy, with a seeming first-publication in Switzerland. The result feels European-a simple, graceful, homely confronting of the painful topic of generational death. Grandmother and Vivi, her pet bird, come to live with Molly, Will and their parents., Vivi's death provides the text for learning that those we love live on in happy memory. However these cheerful, comforting images and simply told story feel a little out of place in contemporary America. The book has the look and feel of , say, 1950 America when families normally cared for their own elder relatives at home.