Not a book review post, but this one is commons situation with all parents.
How do you broach taboo subjects with children? Those ideas and concepts that adults have more or less embraced as part real life, such as death. Actually, I wouldn't want to call them 'taboo' necessarily, they are a real and are not something that should provoke any anxiety. Nor is it like John Huston's character in "Chinatown", Hollis Mulwray, who covers over his granddaughter's eyes at the end, shielding her from the sight of her mother's brains being splattered over the car like some religious zealot, a granddaughter (spoiler if you haven't seen the movie) that he fathered with his daughter. I mean, not serious hypocrisy.
No, I mean explaining the concept of 'dead' to a toddler. A dead animal by the side of road. Explaining why my grandparents are no longer around. Explaining what happened to Cinderella's parents when you read the story or watch the Disney movie. In fact, pick any Disney movie. One or more of the parents of the main characters is often dead.
It is of a particular sticking point with my wife and I because we are both vegetarians and have raised our children to be, too. My daughter sees kids in her school eating, say, chicken nuggets, and doesn't seem to grasp that it is indeed a chicken that once had feathers, pooped and hopped around a coop. The day will come when we have to explain to her why we're vegetarians and the answer we give will invariably involve the words 'kill' or 'dead.' "We don't eat dead animals, honey," it will start, and she will likely then cry because she realizes that her friends are eating a cute little pig rather than sweet and sour pork.
My four year-old daughter doesn't grasp 'dead' because she doesn't understand the idea of permanence, or rather that something can change and be that way permanently. She does understand a basic dichotomy; for example, she can distinguish between what she calls 'regular' and 'toy', the stuff that's real and the stuff that's make-believe. You would think that she would then understand the distinction between 'living' and 'dead', since that follows the same logical distinction as real and make-believe, but she still doesn't understand 'dead' because she still thinks that something that goes away permamently will eventually come back, or be magically restored.
I've explained dead in the Cinderella story by saying that her parents went away and will never come back. In a child's mind, that still leaves the possibility that her parents will come back, since they exist out there, somewhere. If Cinderella's father came back, he would've looked at her stepmother and thought, "why did I marry such a horrible woman?" Then he would've left town, Cinderella never would've gone to the bal, and generations of young girls would've been left without the unrealistic wish fulfillment of marrying a prince, and men wouldn't have had to suffer the comparison.
Some parents will act like Hollis Mulwray and hypocritically shield their kids from ideas such as death, or worse, explanations of where babies come from. Some parents would rather be cruel when explaining death, saying that someone such as a child's pet bunny left and wasn't coming back by suggesting that it doesn't want to.
Me, I will treat the subject in the way I've always spoken to my kids. Using honesty. I will be honest and consistent with my explanation of where Cinderella's parents are until the day comes when the lightbulb comes on in my daughters head. That or I'll elaborate by saying that Cinderella's parents hate her so that's why they're not coming back. And top it off by explaining that the prince likes men.
