The heart and the bottle by oliver jeffers
Together, look at the front cover illustration of this book and ask why there may be a heart in a bottle. Discuss what it means to ‘bottle up feelings’ and when and why we might do this.
Read the book together stopping on the page where one day the little girl finds an empty chair. Discuss what may have happened - it is clear that the older character has died. Read to the end of the book.
Even though the little girl’s adult looks like a grandparent, a bereaved child may see them as a parent and this is the relationship you focus on for the activity.
Key Questions to ask after reading the book:
How does it feel to bottle up feelings? When and why might someone do this?
What does the author/illustrator mean by saying, “And the chair wasn’t so empty any more”?
What do you remember doing with your special person when they were alive?
What made them so special to you?
Be mindful that there really is an empty chair now in a bereaved child’s home, and that a loved one’s belongings may still be where they left them before they died. Listen to the child and what they choose to share with you without judgement or offering solutions. A bereaved child may have started to create a memory box with a surviving family member or if they have support from a hospice or child bereavement charity. Ask them about how it feels to collect items with memories attached to them and move on to discussing those special things they did with their special person before they died. Older children may choose to talk about their special person’s character which will open up an amazing conversation. For illustrating these character traits, you could ask them to think of similes which may be easier to draw, e.g. they were as brave as a lion, draw a lion.
Activity: making a sparkle jar/bottle
Decorate a glass bottle or jar using glass pens and stickers.
Ask the children to draw, write and select stickers which remind them of their special person or the things that they did together when they were still alive.
Encourage them to add patterns and to choose colours which all have memories attached to them.
Remember that it’s also ok if a bereaved child wants to decorate their bottle or jar with things they like too. This is the visual expression of their connection to their special person. It is also an opportunity for a bereaved child to tell their loved one things about their current lives which they can no longer say in person.
Put a LED tea-light or light-string into the bottle or jar to make the decorations sparkle!
Alternatively, if your bottle or jar has a lid, you could fill it with water and a few drops of coloured food dye.
Add glitter too to make it sparkle when you tip it and watch the glitter settle back down to the bottom.
Ending the session:
The Heart and the Bottle is a book about love, loss and hope. Reassure the children that it’s natural to want to put away/”bottle up” really strong and painful feelings in order to protect ourselves from feeling them so intensely when someone special dies. In this session, our activity has been about embracing those feelings through sharing special memories and expressing them in a safe and creative way.
A bottle or jar which was empty at the beginning of the session is now full of love and shared memories. It is literally sparkling with them!
Turn the room’s lights off and the tea-lights/light-strings on to share these sparkling visual feelings and memories.
Tell each child something you like about their jar/bottle to remind them of the special memories they have shared in the session about their special person.