My sister was staying with me last weekend and she asked what was that strange picture book in my office. Displayed on my shelves are
The Long Journey of Mister Poop,
Pat the Beastie, and
The Festival of Bones, among others, so I needed a bit more than that to answer her. Turns out she was referring to
Duck, Death and the Tulip, a book I intended to review but hadn't gotten around to yet.
The reason is that it's not your usual picture book, and I wanted to do it justice. The story is simple. Death, wearing a fashionably long plaid coat and bearing a black tulip, comes to stay with Duck. Understandably nervous, Duck asks, "Are you going to make something happen?" But no. "Life takes care of that," Death tells her. The two pal around, going to the pond, perching high in a tree. Duck wonders about dying and Death listens to her speculate. Winter comes, and one night Duck lies down. She does not get up. Death gently places her body in the river, the tulip resting on her chest.
The last lines are:
For a long time he watched her.
When she was lost to sight, he was almost a little moved.
"But that's life," thought Death.
Written and illustrated by Wolf Erlbruch, a German author, (and beautifully translated by Catherine Chidgey), the book's simple text and sparse, elegant illustrations combine to create a moving yet unsentimental treatise on death. It also has a sly, deadpan humor throughout, as when Duck first notices Death's presence. "Duck was scared stiff, and who could blame her?"
The book is not for every child, but I so wish it was around when my daughter was six or so. She went through a stage when the thought of death panicked her, just looking at her reflection in the mirror could set her off. This book, with its calm, unblinking look at death, might have eased her fears and helped our discussions. Who knows? She may still get a copy.
Duck, Death and the Tulip
by Wolf Erlbruch
Gecko Press, 38 pages
Published: 2008
At the moment Older Brother, Little Brother and I are in the middle of an intense week of rehearsals for the Ryedale Festival’s Community Opera (in North Yorkshire, UK) - this year’s production is a modernised version of the 15th Century English morality play, Everyman, which, in a nutshell, is about Death sent by God to summon Everyman, who is not at all ready, spiritually, to meet his Maker.
This therefore seemed to be the right time to read together Wolf Erlbruch’s extraordinary picture-book Duck, Death and the Tulip (Gecko Press, 2008) - and the book’s translator, Catherine Chidgey, deserves a special mention too! It might seem strange to describe a book about death as beautiful but then, as I have just said, this is an extraordinary book. As Death slips Duck’s lifeless body into “the great river” at the end, the reader is filled with a deep sense of peace, as well as a rueful recognition of the truth of Death’s final thought: “But that’s life” - and perhaps what this story gets across particularly poignantly, but totally matter-of-factly, is that where there is life, death is inevitable. Duck is definitely horrified (and frightened) to discover at the beginning that Death is stalking her. Who wouldn’t be? Then a surprising thing happens - Duck starts to make friends with Death. What follows includes some exquisite moments, such as where Death gets cold when Duck takes him off to the pond for a swim -
‘Are you cold?’ Duck asked. ‘Shall I warm you a little?’
Nobody had ever offered to do that for Death.
Duck’s musings offer much food for thought: all the time she is preparing herself for the fact that sometime soon, she’s not sure exactly when, she will die. Erlbruch’s writing is deft in expressing the tension between loving life and preparing to let go of it. His artwork is haunting too and Duck, Death and the Tulip is a worthy follow-up to Erlbruch’s 2006 Hans Christian Andersen Award for illustration.
A caveat, though: straightforward as it appears, Duck, Death and the Tulip raises complex ideas, which need to be given discussion space. This, however, may be as much to reassure adults that the book has indeed conveyed its life-affirming core, as to clarify any misunderstandings on the part of children. It would be a good choice of story to talk about the death from old age of a loved one - though not when grief is raw. Our context was Everyman. Erlbruch’s cultural heritage includes Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. What stories do you have in your culture which link Life and Death?
