Years must have passed since the funeral when the narrator's deceased grandmother appeared in a dream.

The granddaughter takes heart and asks one of the big, the really big questions about death: "Was it hard to die?"

Fridtjof Küchemann

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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When it comes to children's picture books about death, animals are often involved.

Images are sought to give an impression of the enigmatic, unknown, even uncanny aspects of dying.

If necessary, the childish heroes of the stories form their own picture of what it means to deal with death, to mourn, to bury.

The dead themselves are hardly to be seen.

In "Baba Anna - How my Ukrainian grandmother flew on a blackberry leaf" it takes three days until the coffin is finally nailed shut and the deceased is buried.

In this picture book, Yaroslava Black, born in the foothills of the Carpathians, tells what happened during these three days: about the mourning rites of her country of origin, about the images that people here have had of dying for centuries, about the assumptions on which they are based lie, from the actions with which they orientate themselves in the face of death that is as incomprehensible as it is natural.

So that the soul returns home

The clocks are stopped, the mirrors are draped, the old neighbors gather with candles for whispered prayers by the bed on which the dead woman lies in her most beautiful clothes according to her last wish, a priest sprinkles holy water with a bundle of myrtle on the grandmother and all those don't distance yourself in time: Not everything the author tells about her Ukrainian homeland seems unfamiliar.

The cold wheat-poppy-nut-honey-porridge for the dead, the grains of wheat that are scattered on the floor and thrown towards the ceiling, the threefold lifting and lowering of the coffin when crossing the threshold as well as the fact that it is preferably over seven should be worn, not only seem outdated in this country, but downright alien.

"Up in the mountains," says the narrator's father, on the third day music is even played in the death room as well as in front of the house: "The melody gets faster and louder and the people stomp with all their might, so that the whole house shakes!"

And why?

Because of the soul.

Because she is returning to her homeland.

So that she can safely cross the threshold into Geisterland.

So that the soul does not get stuck in the uncovered mirror and haunts.

However, the narrator already knew as a small child that grandmother would never do that.

After all, she wants to meet her grandfather again.

After all, she had herself made up especially for him and insisted that she be buried with dentures.

In small scenes from the three days of the wake, Yaroslava Black casually conveys what kind of support it can give the mourners to know exactly how to act in the interests of the deceased.

The almost angular and yet delicate colored pencil drawings of Ulrike Jänichen keep the balance between intimacy and distance.

There is something level-headed in the descriptions, but also a lightness that is not only due to the child's perspective, not only to the excursions into memories of experiences with the grandmother - be it a puzzle game together, grandmother's late lust for oranges, that of the girl made a grand appearance at the market, or a grandfather's overheard remark that made the old woman snort so much while ironing that her granddaughter gets all wet from the sprinkling water,

The last two double pages leave the childhood experiences of the death of the grandmother behind.

Dying was like taking off your clothes, she says to the narrator in a dream: "You become as light as a leaf and then you can fly." When the narrator calls after her to stay, there are still so many questions, she gives up the most comforting of all answers.

Yaroslava Black, Ulrike Jänichen: "Baba Anna"

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Urachhaus Verlag, Stuttgart 2022. 46 p., hardcover, €19.90.

From 5 years