The Heavy Bag

The Heavy Bag by Sarah Surgey is a children's book that looks at the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Sadness and Acceptance. Children can experience grief for a loved one; a pet; or even moving on from a school or area. When all of the emotions build up inside a child's mind, they can feel like they are carrying around a huge weight with them. 'The Heavy Bag' follows a little girl called Enid who has just lost her Granddad. As Enid goes out for a walk with lots of different emotions whooshing around inside her head, she feels the weight of the heavy bag that she is carrying. Along her journey, Enid comes across different kinds of people who encourage her to talk about how she is feeling. With each meeting she offloads an item from her bag that represents a stage of grief and talks about how she is feeling, inevitably, as Enid takes each item from her bag, it feels lighter making it easier for her to walk. The book comes with discussion prompts for comprehensive learning. FREE Reader's Guide and coloring pages are also available on the publisher website. The Reader's Guide contains interactive lesson plans that encourage critical thinking skills and connect to the national elementary curriculum.