Annabelle & Aiden: What Happens When We Die? Hardcover – Illustrated, 2 July 2018

Beautifully written

WHY I BOUGHT IT:My 5 year old had been experiencing increased discomfort about death after hearing about my baby brother dying when i was a child. She was talking about being worried her little brother would die, making comments like "i'm gonna die one day" and "I don't want *little brother* to die", and asking about what it feels like to die, what happens after etc.He was afraid and confused and looking to me for answers. I needed some tools to help me; being raised in a very religious home myself, I wanted to take extra care not to mislead or instill any unnecessary fear in my child.Unfortunately nearly every parent in my social circle was religious; I turned to google, reddit, and facebook for help and received so many recommendations from other happy customers for THIS BOOK!BOOK CONTENTS:I LOVE this book. It does such an excellent job of explaining death and energy and putting life into perspective in ways that are engaging and understandable for children. Each page has it's main story text but there's also additional text *here on referred to as "bonus text"* for breaking down complex ideas, scientific names to go with the illustrations (which are beautiful btw), and additional facts. The bonus text is in white or very light colour and is scattered throughout the illustration making it a *bit confusing to read BUT I doubt that would bother the older kids it's intended for and it actually helps for smaller children (they don't notice the bonus text therefore they don't become distracted by the bonus text).The book opens with Annabella & Aiden seeing a bird die and ends with a funeral. The last line is Aiden saying, "Goodbye, bird." Aiden smiled, "we won't EVER forget you. But now it's time for us to go. There's SO much for us to do." Suggestion to the reader to live their life to the fullest right now, because now is all we have.EFFECT ON MY KIDS:Both kids were very engaged. There is a sort of guide in the book called Skeptisaurus (obviously a dinosaur ;P) who my 3 year old was very happy with. After Annabelle and Aiden see the bird die they run to it with their friends. Annabelle starts asking questions about death and Aiden says, "This makes me scared. I may need to pretend, that even though our brains turn off, that this is not the end" on the next page Aiden begins: "Maybe there's a magic part of us that floats above, that sees, hears and feels the things that dreamers can speak of" then Aiden talks about lots of nice things he thinks might be "there" after death which all illustrated in a very silly and fun way that had both my kids giggling and pointing to their favorites parts. My oldest even said, between giggles, "that's silly, chocolate kangaroos are not real, they don't exist!" he's very fond of facts lol. The following pages Skeptisaurus takes the kids through a journey to discover just how impactful their existence is, how energy works, and how the body you occupy now will never really be gone either but just "differently arranged". It felt like this heavy wet blanket had been lifted off all our shoulders reading this book the first time through. That night, for the first time in a week, my 5 year old didn't have any worries about death; we talked, we hugged, and he was smiling at me as i closed the door and told him goodnight.I am so grateful to J.R. Becker and Max Rambaldi (author and illustrator) for creating this book. It was absolutely heartbreaking to see my child suffer from fear and so frustrating to not have the tools or words to help him through those feelings. I actually bought all the other Annabelle & Aiden books a week later! (they're also excellent; i highly recommend them!)

Great book at explaining death, why people believe in heaven and why it doesn't need to be feared. Has top level text for younger kids with bits of detailed explanations for older kids.

While I’m not totally an atheist I wanted to give my daughter some balance to choose her own reality with some logic that is still inspirational. The message is great in general and examples are good too. It’s creepy with all the pictures of people at the end but that’s just me. My kid loves this book and asks for it most night. Will get more books from this series.

My then three year found a lot of comfort in this book. She is more logic based so telling her the things that are able to be proven made sense to her to help her cope. It is simple and one of the best explanations that I have come across, especially for the overly logical kids.