![]() ![]() ![]() Finally, Death goes upstairs, telling the children the words of the title, which offer comfort in the following years. “What would life be worth if there were no death?” he asks. The children refill Death’s coffee mug in an attempt to postpone the inevitable while drinking his coffee, Death tells them an allegorical story to illustrate how, like grief and joy or sorrow and delight, life and death cannot exist without the other. And yet, he has come for their grandmother, resting upstairs. “Not wishing to frighten the children, the visitor had left his scythe outside the door,” writes Ringtved, providing a clue as to the figure’s tender nature. In this empathic picture book, first published in Denmark in 2001, Death-a towering, robed figure with a beaklike nose and sorrowful expression-solemnly sits with four children around their grandmother’s kitchen table. ![]()
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