Elisabeth Helland Larsen
Marine Schneider

Life and I. A Story About Death

Jeg er Døden

Rosy-cheeked and wrapped in blue, with a flower in her hair. Death rides a pink binke. Death, a green-eyed little girl in this pastel world visits small animals with soft fur and big animals with sharp theeth. She lingers with a kindly grand-mother as they knit one last scarft together. She wanders through surroundings of gentle beauty and she tells us who she is.

For parents of children facing the loss of a family member, a friend, or a pet, this book finds words to express what is often so difficult to explain. It ends with such a feeling of uplift and acceptance that readers of any age will turn the last page with a smile and a tear.

Author Elisabeth Helland Larsen and illustrator Marine Schneider weave a tapestry out of direct, poetic words and hand-drawn pictures to give voice to emotions that are moving, real, and most of all, honest.

Illustrations by Marine Schneider.

Larsen jeg er døden

’Families in mourning will find “I Am Death” quietly reassuring when trying to explain why living beings expire. Marine Schneider’s pencil illustrations are delicate yet surprisingly firm–Death may be imagined as a little girl, but she is unwavering.

Literary Features Syndicate

‘If it is possible for a book to be both lovely and haunting, this is the one.’

picturebookdepot.com
Larsen, elisabeth helland

Elisabeth Helland Larsen studied thatre in Paris at the Ecole Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq and children’s literature in Oslo at the Norsk Barnebokinstitutt. She has worked as a clown for more than 20 years in hospitals and hospices, as well as refugee camps, circuses, and theatres.
Her experiences with children there are reflected in her sensitive stories.

Marie Schneider has drawn since she could hold a pencil. The young Belgian illustrator just received her degree from the LUCA School of Arts. Life and I is her children’s book debut.