“When I woke up this morning, I tickled Mousie’s tummy. But Mousie didn’t wake up.” A small boy’s reaction to his pet mouse’s death is handled with great sensitivity by his parents and with great skill by author Robie Harris. “I have something very sad to tell you,” the boy’s father says with his arm around the child. “Mouse is . . . dead.” In this important and comforting story, the child expresses his anger, and then grief, with tears. But he also has other outlets as he prepares a box in which to bury Mousie, putting in some of his pet’s favorite things, and then goes through the ritual of a burial. His confusion and fear about death are also touched upon. “Dead,” says Daddy, “is very different from sleeping.” Harris’s text is an exemplary treatment of a difficult subject for children and adults alike. Jan Ormerod created her full-color, full-page art in black pencil lines with watercolor washes. (Ages 3–6)

When I woke up this morning, I tickled Mousie's tummy. But Mousie didn't wake up.

When a child learns that his pet mouse has died, at first he can't believe it. "Mousie is NOT dead!" he insists. "He's just...very...very sleepy this morning."

But it takes time for the young narrator to understand that Mousie IS dead and he's not coming back. With the help of his family, the child finds out that it's perfectly okay to feel angry and sad when his pet mouse -- whom he loves -- dies. By voicing his feelings and asking questions, he finally begins to accept Mousie's death.

Beautifully told by award-winning author Robie H. Harris and gently illustrated by world-renowned artist Jan Ormerod, "Goodbye Mousie" is a perfect book with which to help children cope with loss.