Grief and Loss in Middle Grade: An Interview with Jess Redman

I’m grateful to School Library Journal for always giving me so many opportunities to dig deep into topics that interest me and interview so many wonderful authors. I wrote the cover story for SLJ’s October issue, “Good Grief: Middle Grade Authors Normalize Loss.”

SLJ and all the authors I interviewed were kind enough to allow me to share these interviews in whole here on TLT, which is so exciting to me because everyone had such great things to say and I could only share small snippets of these conversations. This article features interviews with K. A. Reynolds, Jess Redman, Gary D. Schmidt, Emily Barth Isler, Debbie Fong, Lisa Stringfellow, and Christina Li.
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Please enjoy this interview with Jess Redman. Be sure to check out the article in SLJ and come back to TLT for the rest of the interviews in the upcoming days.

MacGregor: What inspired or influenced the idea to center grief and loss in your story (or stories)?
Redman: When the idea for The Miraculous first came to me, I was a therapist with a private practice focused on adolescents, and I was in the middle of a difficult pregnancy. Grief and loss were always on my mind, and working on this story about a miracle-collecting boy’s journey to heal his heart was a way to heal my own. As a therapist, it was important to me to write a story that spoke to the reality of how kids experience loss and to show that there are many paths to hope and healing.
MacGregor: What are some things your character does to cope with their loss or how are some ways the grief presents itself? How are the grieving characters supported?
Redman: In The Miraculous, Wunder’s sister has recently died, and his parents are struggling with their own intense grief. Wunder is befriended (somewhat against his will!) by a cape-wearing, paranormal-loving girl who has recently lost her grandfather and by an elderly woman who lives near the town cemetery. The three have many conversations about their lost loved ones, forming a deep bond over their shared losses.
Wunder also begins delivering letters around his town of Branch Hill, each of which are related to a loss. He starts to understand how universal the experience of grief is and also how many different ways there are to grieve—from grief groups to religious ceremonies to serving others to therapy to memorial projects.
Quite a lot of The Miraculous takes place in the town cemetery, which becomes a place of refuge for Wunder, and the story ends there, with the entire town celebrating and remembering their deceased loved ones together.
MacGregor: A hallmark of middle grade books is offering hope to both the characters and the readers. Was this particularly challenging for you to do while tackling grief/loss?
Redman: I once read a review of The Miraculous that lamented that the story did not “solve the problem of death.” Which, I have to admit, is absolutely true. Death remains death. But I do believe something my cape-wearing, paranormal loving character says: “Sometimes the brightest miracles are found in the darkest moments.” This is the light and hope I tried to point my young readers to.
MacGregor: Why is it important to address tough topics like death in middle grade? (I’m thinking of all those who say things like, “Why write sad or hard books when life is hard enough?” or those who would like to “protect” children from these storylines, as though they don’t happen all the time to real actual children.)
Redman: As a therapist, I have so often encountered this sort of wishful adult thinking. The truth is we need books that tackle tough topics because kids are already tackling them—whether they’re going through the issue themselves, supporting a friend, or just trying to understand how the world works. During those middle-grade years, kids are just starting to look out and beyond themselves, and they’re interested in absolutely everything.
Books that address difficult topics can start the conversations we should be having with our kids. Stories can provide language to express new feelings and perspectives, and give kids the confidence to face their own tough times whenever they may come. Reading about kids overcoming a difficult situation is like a dress rehearsal for the reader.
MacGregor: What do you hope readers take away from your book?
Redman: There’s a line that repeats throughout The Miraculous: We will all be changed. Let us change together. Middle-grader readers are on the cusp of big changes, and I hope they hear in my story that community, connection, and love can bring them through each and every one.
MacGregor: Given your work as a therapist, can you share a little about advice for using books to help cope/feel less alone?
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Redman: The National Alliance for Children’s Grief tells us that by age 18, more than 8% of children will have lost a parent or sibling. By age 25, these numbers rise to 20%. That’s a lot of young people going through a very significant loss. And, of course, that doesn’t include the loss of grandparents, friends, pets, and others.
One of the things I see with young clients is that isolation often leads to complicated grief. Bereaved kids may feel set apart and alone, like no one understands. They may be embarrassed by how their loss makes them stand out—and then they may feel ashamed of being embarrassed. Over and over I’ve found that there is healing in connection for my young clients. A teacher who checks in, a friend who doesn’t shy away from talking about the deceased loved one—these consistent expressions of support are invaluable to a bereaved child.
This is one of the reasons I believe in the necessity of “tough topic” stories. When students have been exposed to grief through a book, they gain a better understanding of how to support a friend who has experienced a loss. That bereaved child is less likely to be avoided, less likely to feel isolated, and more likely to seek out the help they need in that period of emotional transition.
While I’m always cautious about putting stories about grief into the hands of a child with a fresh, raw loss, I believe that, at the right time, these stories can play a pivotal role in helping bereaved children sort through the emotional confusion of their grief and express their needs. They can see that they are not alone, and reading and discussing these stories with a loved one can start conversations of healing. It’s my greatest hope that my story about a miracle-collecting boy’s journey to heal his heart will help other little hearts that need healing.
Filed under: Guest Post

About Amanda MacGregor
Amanda MacGregor works in an elementary library, loves dogs, and can be found on Twitter @CiteSomething.
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