World Book Day 2021

Published on: 04/03/2021

On Thursday 4^th March we celebrated World Book Day, 2021.

In normal times, we know these past twelve months have been anything but, we’d generally have some fun, like schools do, with some adult ‘dress up like your favourite character from a book,’ at the hospice.

Last year Sarah from fundraising helped to dress John Bear like James Bond from Ian Fleming’s novel ‘Casino Royale’. (Fun fact: Did you know Ian Fleming also wrote ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’?)

It was in early March 2020 so we hadn’t really grasped what was just around the corner, so various staff, volunteers and even patients’ family members were happy to have their photo taken with our parody 007, John Bear.

“The name’s Bear, John Bear!”

This year we thought it might be a day to think about everything that our community, including outside of the hospice, have been through in this past year. Many have had it worse than others with the earlier, than might otherwise have been, loss of loved ones through coronavirus.

World Book Day prompted a thought that, in a small way, we may be able to help some people.

A team of hospice professionals and trained volunteers offer bereavement support to family members whose loved ones may have experienced one of our hospice services. Those professionals recommend various books, written on the subject of loss, grief and grieving, to volunteers and, indeed, to family members.

Some are gentle stories, written for children, which also help adults to work through their emotions after the loss of a loved one.

Other books can help people to contextualise their personal grief and know that they are not alone in feeling how they do.

We have prepared a selection of them below here* and with a myriad of ways to source and consume books nowadays people can find ways to access at least some of these books, or excerpts from them, by searching for their titles on the World Wide Web!

You may find that some of the children’s books we’ve listed are actually read out on the likes of YouTube by storytellers.

We’ve also linked each book to our Wirral Hospice St John’s Amazon Wish List and if there is one you might like to purchase for the hospice, each link below will take you to the individual page for that book.

In whatever way you celebrate World Book Day we hope that you may take some inspiration from reading, whether you do it for diverting entertainment, for interesting research or even for some self-help. As the famous American astronomer and author, Carl Sagan, once said,

“To read is to voyage through time.”

*Books recommended by our Bereavement team:

For children;

Pepper Pooch and Little by Caroline Jay

The Invisible String by Patrice Karst

The Memory Tree by Britta Teckentrup

The Memory Box by Joanna Rowland

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

For adults;

Bearing the unbearable: Love, loss, and the heartbreaking path of grief by Joanne Cacciatore (2017)

Grieving is loving: compassionate words for bearing the unbearable by Joanne Cacciatore (2021)

Loss of a parent: adult grief when parents die by Theresa Jackson (2016)