I loved this unique book, tried to review but it wouldn't let me

I did not think I was going to like this book. I went into it with very low expectations and thankfully, those expectations were greatly surpassed.

This is a book about death, as the title would imply. Actually, the copy I read has a different title. It seems this book has various titles. The one I read was Shoebox Funeral: Stories from Wolf Creek. The one that appears on Goodreads is Grave Tales: Stories from Wolf Creek. But it’s also just called The Little Book of Death. It doesn’t matter. They are all the same book, a thing I wish I had known from the very start.


Anyway, back to the book. It’s about death. It is a collection of true stories about a young girl who is one of ten siblings living on a farm in Pennsylvania, as she loves and cares for dying animals. When reading the synopsis, this book did not stand out to me. I have never been on a farm and the idea of death frightens me more than anything else in the world. Now, I am glad I gave this book a chance.

The book is beautifully written, as well as beautifully illustrated. There is something about the simplicity of the writing that I found charming. The way that Voltz speaks of each creature she cared for as if each was it’s own person, important and loved.

Th book is sad, it deals with the tragedies of life and the knowledge that death is inescapable. It also has a lot of hope, the desire to against all odds try to do something good, to try and save the unsavable.

I only wish there were more of the story, as the book is only 140 pages.