The Other Side of Healing

Picture and Silent Books at the Edges of Life

Abstract

This contribution explores the role of picture books and silent books as narrative and symbolic tools for addressing the theme of death in childhood. In a cultural context that often avoids confronting the loss, frequently repressed or left unspoken, these books offer visual and poetic languages capable of guiding children and young people in recognizing and processing grief. Through analyzing five selected titles presented here as examples, the study highlights how images and metaphoric visions can give form to the ineffable and transform silence into a space of shared meaning. Far from being traumatic, these books provide a protected environment in which death is narrated as part of the life cycle, encouraging deep reflection on identity, relationships, and memory. In this way, the essay fully integrates into the broader debate on narrative medicine, highlighting the therapeutic and generative value of children's literature as a hermeneutic and pedagogical-relational tool capable of promoting understanding processes, analysis, and communication within caregiving practices.