My two-year-old was holding the copy of Debra Adelaide's Household Guide to Dying I'd borrowed from the library a few months ago but couldn't bring myself to read thinking it might be unnecessarily upsetting or depressing when there were likely to be other more cheering things to read like um the newspaper.
"What's this?" she asked.
"It's a book about death," I said.
She laughed and threw it back on the bed. "No it's not. It's a book about teapots!"
As practically everyone else already knows, we were both right.
I started to read it that day and didn't stop until finishing it after midnight by which stage I was a teary emotional mess.
I've often thought there should be warnings on the front of books like they show at the beginning of telly shows.
This Household Guide's would say "Some readers should be advised they may have strong emotional reactions to the contents of this book. These include parents of young children, sick people, anyone who has ever had a serious illness, anyone who has known anyone with a serious illness, anyone who is scared of sudden death, slow death, leaving things undone, in fact anyone really."
Apart from that, it was utterly charming, especially the chooks called after the Bennet girls.
