"If you know exactly what you'd say to a child of any age faced for the first time by the death of someone very close to him, and if you yourself have a clear and comfortable understanding of death and what it means, you don't need a book on the subject.

"For the rest of us professional people as well as parents - the present volume will prove to be of rather surprising help, interest, and pleasure.

If you are looking for a. single voice, a single style, a single philosophy, you may be disappointed. If, however, you can appreciate that here for perhaps the very first time under a single cover you are privileged to find in condensed and highly readable form thoughts on death of nearly a dozen different professional people most especially interested in the subject (rabbi, minister, priest, sociologist, anthropologist, research psychologist, school psychologist, psychiatrist, biologist, librar- ian), you will be richly rewarded."

from the Introduction by Louise Bates Ames Gessell Institute of Child Development