Books
Recommended reading for dealing with victimization.
Adults
How to Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies, Therese Rando
When death is unanticipated, few of us are prepared for it or for the grief it brings. There is no right or wrong way to grieve; each person’s response to loss will be different. In this compassionate, comprehensive guide, the author leads you gently through the painful but necessary process of grieving and helps you find the best way for yourself.
No Time For Goodbyes: Coping With Sorrow, Anger, and Injustice After a Tragic Death, Janice Harris Lord
Janice Harris Lord’s definitive and beloved guide is now available in its 7th edition, completely enhanced and updated. Survivors grieving the tragic death of a loved one will find here deep understanding and insight as well as detailed practical information on dealing with legal and financial issues. Eloquent comments from survivors are combined with the author s many years of research and experience to make this an incredibly helpful resource. No Time For Goodbyes is used extensively by grieving families as well as numerous professionals and organizations.
Adults & Children
Aarvy Aardvark Finds Hope: A Read Aloud Story for People of All Ages About Loving and Losing, Friendship and Hope, Donna R. O’Toole
Our classic Read-Aloud Story for people of all ages about loving & losing, friendship & hope. Aarvy has lost his family and is filled with despair and hopelessness until a true friend helps him learn about the strengths within himself. Beautiful line drawings by Kore Loy McWhirter can be colored in. Aarvy helps us learn that: Grief is a natural healing process; Grief is emotional physical, spiritual; Grief is highly personal; Grief can connect rather than separate when experienced fully; It is OK to remember; Rituals and imagination assist healing; Friends can hold hope, witness sorrow, and assist healing.
Tear Soup: A Recipe for Healing After Loss, Pat Schwiebert & Chuck DeKlyen
Tear Soup is the story of Grandy, who has just suffered a big loss in her life. She blends emotions and memories into her soup as a way to work thru the healing and grieving process.
Children
A Secret Safe to Tell, Naomi Hunter
It happened when I was little, always when we were alone…but, sometimes he did things that worried me and made me feel strange on the inside…I thought games were supposed to be FUN. This is a gentle book that encourages children to tell someone about any confusing feelings that they might be experiencing, as a way of HEALING.
Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept, Debra Byrne
This is a beautifully illustrated picture book that sensitively broaches the subject of keeping our children safe from sexual abuse. This book was written as a tool to help parents, caregivers and teachers broach the subject with children in a non-threatening way. Visit YouTube to see the book read by the author.
Christian
A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss, Jerry Sittser
In one tragic moment, a DUI claimed three generations of his family: his mother, his wife, and his young daughter. He was left a single parent of three children. What grief! In his book he recalls a waking dream he had about darkness and light. He likens grief to chasing the sun as it sets in the west, afraid that the darkness would cover him up. Realizing that he would not be fast enough to outrun the darkness, he believed he would be in darkness forever. But then someone told him that the quickest way to reach the sun and the light of day was not by running to the west – but by heading east, plunging into the darkness until one reaches the sunrise. He realized that he could be transformed by his suffering, rather than thinking he could somehow avoid it. A Grace Disguised plumbs the depths of sorrow, whether due to illness, divorce, or the loss of someone we love. The circumstances are not important; what we do with those circumstances is. In coming to the end of ourselves, we can come to the beginning of a new life – one marked by spiritual depth, joy, compassion, and a deeper appreciation of simple blessings.
A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis
Lewis, in his 60’s married Joy Davidman in 1956, becoming the stepfather to her two boys. Her death four years later triggered the writing of A Grief Observed. When Joy died, Lewis’s life was turned upside down with grief. His brave words melted down into Grief, a composition that simply reproduces the four handwritten journals Lewis wrote in an attempt to work through his pain. He writes, “God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.”
One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp
This New York Times best seller addresses “why, God?” She writes, “No, God? No, God, we won’t take what You give. No, God, Your plans are a gutted, bleeding mess and I didn’t sign up for this and You really thought I’d go for this? No, God, this is ugly and this is a mess and can’t You get anything right and just haul all this pain out of here and I’ll take it from here, thanks. And, God, Thanks for nothing.” She goes on to wonder, “Isn’t this the human inheritance, the legacy of the Garden? I wake and put the feet to the plank floors, and I believe the Serpent’s hissing lie, the repeating refrain of his campaign through the ages: God isn’t good. It’s the cornerstone of his movement. That God withholds good from His children, that God does not genuinely, fully, love us.”