What do you think?
Rate this book
The Brave Souls Club
The Brave Souls Club is an inspirational story that provides a positive answer to the question "WHY ME?" asked by kids who are sick battling illnesses and diseases, both rare and common. It is meant to give them a sense of control when everything around them seems to be so out of control. It's a sweet story that will hopefully leave the reader feeling like they are a true inspirational hero and an official member of The Brave Souls Club.
38 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2011
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 10, 2015
It seems fair to assume that nobody writes a book for children about suffering, death and dying with anything other than goodwill and true compassion as motivation. And I would bet the bank that Danielle Viverito is a kind and caring person. So it is with great sadness that I find myself compelled to warn you away from this apparently well-intentioned book. (For the record my comments also reflect the opinions of every member of our Pediatric Grief and Loss Department and the Child Life Specialists and Child Psychologists at our hospital.)
There are relatively few books available that discuss chronic, life-limiting (and life-threatening) conditions in children. Our team bought copies of “The Brave Souls Club” based upon online recommendations, along with 6 other titles by various authors. And we were trucking right along reading them one by one – discussing which were most appropriate for which circumstances – when this one brought the whole activity to a screeching halt.
The back-of-book blurb states that “The Brave Souls Club is an inspirational story that provides a positive answer to the question “WHY ME?” asked by kids who are sick… It is meant to give them a sense of control… It’s a sweet story…” This was not my experience.
The story centers around Lilly, a “very sick girl” who remains hospitalized and dies prior to the last page. Lilly takes upon herself the task of visiting each and every child every day in order to raise their spirits and make them happy. “On days that she was not feeling her best she forced herself to put a big cheery smile on her face and make her rounds…” Like a woman possessed, Lilly takes a special interest in one particularly dower, recalcitrant boy named Billy who is withdrawn and frightened about an impending surgery.
Lilly’s message to him is increasingly alarming:
1) Billy should overcome his fear by growing excited about surgery because it means he will be one step closer to getting better. (Apparently Lilly has never heard of complications from surgery, botched operations, or post-operative pain. Nor has anyone taught her the survival-based value of reasonable fear.)
2) Billy is in his current situation because he chose it. Before coming to earth from heaven, he was asked to speak with Saint Clement. Billy (and Lilly and every other child that has bad things happening to them) was given the option of taking upon himself this burden on behalf of another child who was “not strong enough to carry out their life’s purpose properly”.
3) Suffering children “give weaker souls a chance to live a life without having to struggle with such hard problems”. And suffering children get the tremendous benefit of knowing they wanted their painful, upsetting, truncated lives simply because this makes them Brave Souls and “heroes”. (Inexplicably this makes Billy happy for the first time since entering the hospital.)
4) Billy’s tragic suffering never ends. Lilly again: “That’s the cool part about The Brave Souls Club, when our mission ends, we get to go back into the universe and we can choose to once again help another soul!”
I will close by again stating that I am certain this book was lovingly created with only the very best of intentions. Unfortunately it complicates grief, confuses an already complex subject, and places upon sick children the responsibility of making everyone around them happy (through forced cheerfulness, if necessary) and of appropriating another’s suffering. These messages are very much against current practice in pediatric care and the healthy psychosocial support of seriously ill children. For my part I did not find this book lived up to its promise of being inspirational, positive and sweet.
There are relatively few books available that discuss chronic, life-limiting (and life-threatening) conditions in children. Our team bought copies of “The Brave Souls Club” based upon online recommendations, along with 6 other titles by various authors. And we were trucking right along reading them one by one – discussing which were most appropriate for which circumstances – when this one brought the whole activity to a screeching halt.
The back-of-book blurb states that “The Brave Souls Club is an inspirational story that provides a positive answer to the question “WHY ME?” asked by kids who are sick… It is meant to give them a sense of control… It’s a sweet story…” This was not my experience.
The story centers around Lilly, a “very sick girl” who remains hospitalized and dies prior to the last page. Lilly takes upon herself the task of visiting each and every child every day in order to raise their spirits and make them happy. “On days that she was not feeling her best she forced herself to put a big cheery smile on her face and make her rounds…” Like a woman possessed, Lilly takes a special interest in one particularly dower, recalcitrant boy named Billy who is withdrawn and frightened about an impending surgery.
Lilly’s message to him is increasingly alarming:
1) Billy should overcome his fear by growing excited about surgery because it means he will be one step closer to getting better. (Apparently Lilly has never heard of complications from surgery, botched operations, or post-operative pain. Nor has anyone taught her the survival-based value of reasonable fear.)
2) Billy is in his current situation because he chose it. Before coming to earth from heaven, he was asked to speak with Saint Clement. Billy (and Lilly and every other child that has bad things happening to them) was given the option of taking upon himself this burden on behalf of another child who was “not strong enough to carry out their life’s purpose properly”.
3) Suffering children “give weaker souls a chance to live a life without having to struggle with such hard problems”. And suffering children get the tremendous benefit of knowing they wanted their painful, upsetting, truncated lives simply because this makes them Brave Souls and “heroes”. (Inexplicably this makes Billy happy for the first time since entering the hospital.)
4) Billy’s tragic suffering never ends. Lilly again: “That’s the cool part about The Brave Souls Club, when our mission ends, we get to go back into the universe and we can choose to once again help another soul!”
I will close by again stating that I am certain this book was lovingly created with only the very best of intentions. Unfortunately it complicates grief, confuses an already complex subject, and places upon sick children the responsibility of making everyone around them happy (through forced cheerfulness, if necessary) and of appropriating another’s suffering. These messages are very much against current practice in pediatric care and the healthy psychosocial support of seriously ill children. For my part I did not find this book lived up to its promise of being inspirational, positive and sweet.
September 13, 2014
This book is a very well written book for children struggling with chronic illness. I also enjoyed the illustrations. I recommend this to anyone with a suffering child.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews