Duck, Death and the Tulip

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Erlbruch’s illustration of Death, in contrast, is a little off-putting as a skeleton and could bother some younger children, despite Erlbruch using facial expressions to ease the harshness of the skeleton. The most moving book I’ve read this year is the German picture book Duck, Death and The Tulip by Wolf Erlbruch, about the strange, uneasy friendship.

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In this story about friendship, a duck meets Death “who, as it turns out, has been following her all her life. The German children’s book author and illustrator Wolf Erlbruch offers a wonderfully warm and assuring answer in Duck, Death and the Tulip ( public library) — a marvelous addition to the handful of intelligent and imaginative children’s books about death and loss.Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static.

I don't know what I was expecting, I didn't read the blurb but requested it at work after a colleague told me about it. However, unlike Cry, Heart, But Never Break and even City Dog, Country Frog where death is a theme and even a character in the former, there is no one remembering the deceased after Duck dies. JANELLE: As I think about your last line here as well as previous comments regarding the metaphorical and philosophical perceptions on death, I am reminded about the power of picture books for all readers. At the Question and Answer session after the show, director Nina Nawalowalo describes her love of magic and how this performance offers an opportunity to create this with both puppets and acting. Expanding on the Instagram video from which this is spun, the simply drawn art shows one button-eyed, pale-skinned child with a piece of chalk drawing and redrawing an increasingly large circle that first lets in a sibling and their interracial parents, then relatives (including another interracial couple), then larger groups (diverse in age and skin tone, including one child in a wheelchair and one wearing a hijab).

As the river spills off the book and we turn to the last page, we see Death surrounded by other animals — a subtle reminder that he will escort the fox and the rabbit and you and me down the river of life, just as he did Duck. By presenting these two characters as opposing each other from the start, this awakens curiosity in the reader to find out why Death is following Duck whilst perhaps hinting to older readers that Duck is dying.