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Drop Dead ISBN: 9780099659112
Cole, Babette
Published by Red Fox, 1998
In Babette Cole's inimitable way, this is a story about growing up, growing old and, finally, dying, but it is so funny and so anarchic, that the idea of death comes along - as it should do - as a part of life. When their grandchildren ask the old couple why they are such 'bald old wrinklies', the two of them respond by explaining that they started out that way as babies, and then proceed to tell the full story of their lives - which are quite remarkable! Full of bizarre adventures, anarchic behaviour and marvellous events, the results are that now they have grown wrinkly, have false teeth, forget things and 'have shrunk a bit'. But they are still up for 'the odd stunt' and know that one day they will 'just drop down dead like everyone else'. Their answer to what will happen to them after they are dead is an array of possibilities. Perhaps they will be'recycled' into an animal or a worm, or a pickled onion(!), a ghost or an alien - or even 'two scrawny chickens'. The final page shows them in a field with lots of other 'scrawny chickens'! This whole story is so impossibly funny, silly, heretical in every sense that it can only be enjoyed at a highly humorous level and isn't helpful about actual death at all, but it will make an interesting way of starting discussion about it before the real need for a serious approach is needed.
Age: 6+