No passado dia 1 de Novembro, Ellen Duthie esteve na Livraria Verney para participar na Noite do Limbo, um evento organizado pelo Município de Oeiras.

Coube-me a moderação da conversa durante a qual tivemos a oportunidade de saber curiosidades sobre o livro ¿Asi es la muerte?, bem como sobre o trabalho que a Ellen desenvolve junto de crianças e jovens.

Depois da conversa foi possível conhecer os livros da autoria da Ellen Duthie, da sua fantástica editora Wonder Ponder, na Livraria Gatafunho.

Para quem não esteve presente, aqui ficam as perguntas e as respostas do guião que eu e a Ellen preparámos para a nossa conversa - e que, na verdade, não seguimos.

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[Joana] ¿Asi es la muerte? is a book that is filled with questions, with children’s questions. What made you think of writing a book about death having children’s questions as a thread?

[Ellen] The book grew out of years of philosophical workshops with children where death often surfaced not as something morbid, but as something deeply curious. We wanted to create a book that could spark the same kind of open, free, thoughtful conversations we witnessed in those sessions.

From the start, we knew we wanted to build it from real children’s questions, and not adult reconstructions. Many books about difficult topics decide what questions children need answers to and then proceed to answer them, rather than listening to children’s questions and the reasons, points of interest, and concerns behind their questions.

So instead of writing for children about death, we wrote with them, placing their wonder, confusion, humour and honesty at the centre.

I think basing books on children’s questions is also a natural way of engaging adults more genuinely too. Here are some real questions by real children, inviting both adults and children to face the same mystery together.

[Joana] The book is the result of a call for questions that received worldwide coverage. Was there a thematic pattern or thread of curiosity common to various countries or cultures? And was there a country or culture with a distinct perspective on death?

[Ellen] We received hundreds of questions from twelve countries: Spain, Italy, Finland, Portugal, Germany, the UK, the US, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil and Turkey.

Across cultures, the same themes kept appearing:
– curiosity about the physical process (“How does the skin go away?”),
– existential awareness (“Will I die?”),
– ethical concern (“Who takes care of the children when parents die?”),
– and metaphysical wonder (“What is there after death?”).

Obviously, what we did was not a social science study into the attitudes embedded in children’s questions about death across the world. The sample is not representative in that sense, and we can’t really draw any real conclusions from it.

But if I had to point to one aspect I intuitively sense from reading all the questions together, it would be that those from kids in Mexico somehow represent a much more tangible and physical idea of death. In many of the Mexican questions, death seems to be a place, with a ground to it, that you can walk through and stamp on. In Mexican death you stand; in many other views of death you float. It’s as if Mexican death is more of a solid state, compared with the gas state implied in many other views of death.

But as I say, overall, the variety inside each country was greater than the differences between countries.

It would seem that curiosity about death is a human constant and the way our curiosity is expressed has many universal aspects to it.

[Joana] Do children need to talk about death? Why do you think that happens?

[Ellen] Children already think about death; they simply lack permission and sometimes language. Talking about it doesn’t plant the idea; it reveals it. Once the topic opens up, most children feel relief and excitement. They discover that others wonder and fear the same things.

By talking, they weave together curiosity, imagination and emotion, instead of keeping them isolated. Silence, on the other hand, tends to magnify fear. Dialogue helps us integrate death into their picture of life; it becomes something speakable, shareable, even interesting.

[Joana] How does children’s literature deal with topics like war, death and grief?

[Ellen] Children’s literature tends to oscillate between overprotection and overmoralising. In recent years, there’s also been a tendency towards grave subjects, especially for teens and young adults. I sometimes wonder whether we might not want to give teens a bit of lightness in this age of darkness too, sprinkled in with all that dystopia!

But back to the question, when it comes to death, some classics -like E.B. White’s wonderful Charlotte’s Web or the fabulous Duck, Death and the Tulip by Wolf Erlbruch- manage to approach it with poetic honesty and emotional nuance. Others hide it under euphemism or replace it with lessons about bravery, heaven or easy answers.

The best books don’t instruct; they invite reflection.

Dying to Ask follows that line but adds a philosophical dimension: it’s not “Here’s what happens,” but “What do you think? What can we do with that question of yours?”.  

In that sense, the book doesn’t seek a quick fix to comfort; it opens doors to thought, imagination and dialogue -all of which, in the end, do also end up providing comfort.

[Joana] Death and grief are among the top topics banned from schools in America (according to The Economist). From your experience as an author and a translator of children’s literature, would you like to comment on this?

[Ellen] The avoidance of death in schools mirrors a wider social tendency to treat mortality as a private or pathological matter.

When death is banned, we lose a vital opportunity for existential education and for learning how to live with limits, loss and empathy.

Philosophical and literary approaches offer a safe, creative way to explore the subject without turning it into therapy or doctrine. By working through stories, art and questions, we can talk about death as naturally as we talk about birth, friendship or justice.

Children’s books, classrooms and libraries could be laboratories of meaning instead of spaces of censorship.

[Joana] You wrote the book with Anna Juan Cantavella, an anthropologist, and it was also reviewed by Xaviera Torres (a biologist) and Montse Colilles Codina (a psychologist). Why did you surround yourself with experts in these fields?

[Ellen] Because children’s questions cross every boundary: scientific, cultural, emotional, spiritual. We wanted each answer to honour that complexity.

Anthropology helped us understand the diversity of human rituals and beliefs about death.
Biology helped us remain truthful about the physical processes of dying and decomposition.
Psychology helped us respect children’s emotional timing and the way grief is experienced at different ages.

The mix kept the book rigorous but still playful: serious about truth, but also open to imagination.

[Joana] How do adults usually react to children’s questions about death?

[Ellen] Adults’ first reaction is often avoidance or deflection: “Don’t think about that,” or “You’re too young”, or a quick solution for instant comfort. “Your grandfather is watching from the stars”. This comes from fear, of upsetting the child, or of confronting their own mortality.

Yet when adults allow the question to breathe, they often discover relief themselves.
Children don’t demand definitive answers; they ask for a conversation, for companionship in wondering.

The adult’s calm curiosity is more valuable than any explanation.

[Joana]  Do you think adults fear children’s curiosity about death because it challenges their own relationship with mortality?

[Ellen]  Yes.

Children’s blunt honesty can pierce adult denial. When a six-year-old asks, “Will you die too?”, it confronts adults with the very thought they avoid daily. But that confrontation can be transformative.

In daring to look at death through a child’s eyes, adults recover a sense of humility and wonder. It’s not just the child who learns—the adult does too.

[Joana] What advice would you give to adults — parents, teachers, mediators — who feel uncomfortable when children ask them about death?

[Ellen] First, acknowledge the question instead of running from it: “That’s a great question. What made you think of it?”. I think this is particularly important because questions often come from somewhere very different than you might have imagined initially. Sometimes a seemingly dark question has a light-hearted thought behind it; or vice-versa, a light-handed formulation might hide a darker concern. 

Second, remember: you don’t have to have the answer (especially if you don’t know the answer!). Curiosity shared is already meaningful.

Third, invite the child to imagine, draw, or tell a story. Different languages help process the same mystery in interestingly different yet interconnected ways.

And perhaps most importantly, accept your own discomfort.

Children learn from our attitude more than from our words. If we can stay present and open, we teach that uncertainty is explorable, and can even become bearable.

[Joana] Humour and death: there’s a well-known Portuguese comedian who says that humour and laughter relieve the tension and pain of death. Do you think dialogue has the same effect, of relieving the tension and pain of death?

Yes, I think dialogue and humor share that power. I think both allow a shift of distance without denial.

They let us look at what frightens us sideways, through laughter or conversation. They let us approach and stand back, as we feel comfortable, in a kind of dance with the pain and tension, that makes it all more bearable, I think.

Humour softens fear; dialogue, perhaps, transforms it.

I also think humour is a very powerful mechanism for thought. The kind of humour where your laughter is followed by a conversation or dialogue allows you to unpack your laughter and see what’s behind it. Very often, we find questions or hidden feelings that are well worth exploring.

At Wonder Ponder, we see questioning as a playful and sometimes humorous act, one that disarms solemnity and makes death approachable without trivialising it.

[Joana] If children could teach adults one thing about death, what do you think it would be?

[Ellen] Probably to stay open, to stay curious. Children remind us that asking about death is not morbid; it’s human.

They accept mystery more naturally than we do; they can hold fear and fascination together. And this helps us not only develop a healthier relationship with death, but also, in more general terms, with uncertainty.

In the end, thinking about death and asking questions about death has a great deal to do with learning to live.

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Os livros Wonder Ponder estão à venda na Livraria Gatafunho (Oeiras).

Agradecimentos: Município de Oeiras