Death and the Empathic Embrace in Four Contemporary Picture Books

How can children transcend the tendency to empathize with those similar to themselves over those who are different, and so begin the journey to cross those boundaries that the fear of the unknown imposes? This paper examines the strategies within the visual and verbal narratives of four picture books by recent recipients of IBBY's Hans Christian Andersen Award for illustration in their confrontation of the most formidable of all unknowns—death.