What’s Heaven (1999) by Maria Shriver is a conversation between a mother and her young child Kate. Kate comes home from school to find her mother crying. Her mother's grandmother, Kate's great-grandmother has passed away, and, consequently, they have a teaching moment. It just so happens that a friend of mine passed away this week, and Maria Shriver's explanation of death appeals to me right now. Heaven is "a beautiful place up in the sky where no one is sick, where no one is mean or unhappy.” This sounds like the perfect place for my friend to be right now. Kate wants to know how you get to heaven, what’s a funeral, why her great-grandmother‘s body is in a casket. After Kate ponders her mother's answers, she decides that heaven is a place where great-grandmother doesn’t have to be sick in a bed anymore.
Kate's mother helps her move beyond the concrete by saying that ancestors live in all of us. "Everything she ever taught me is alive in me.” Kate insightfully takes this one step further when she says “those are the same things you always tell me. Now I know they came from great- grandma to grandma to you to me. So great grandma is alive and me too!”
This is a small book for child size hands. Sandra Speidel‘s illustrations are colorful pastels that soften yet glorify I loved ones transition from this life into heaven.
First grade with Mrs. Allen has a Heaven Activity. TeacherWise has God Created the Heavens and the Earth.
