Discusses the Egyptian preservation of dead bodies, stories associated with mummies, and mummies from different cultures, including Incan and Sicilian.

"We all need to know what's missing in our lives. At a funeral people describe everything a person has accomplished in their life, but what if they missed something? What if there was one thing they never got to do? And what if they had a chance to go back and do it?" The Blackwells are a family with an astounding history and traditions, which include holding their funerals before they die! Their ways are questionable and their stories about deceased...

"A compelling exploration of the death industry and the people-morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners-who work in it and what led them there. We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we're so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look? Fueled by a childhood...

As a son helps his mother arrange for the burial of his father in the traditional Chinese custom of his mother's village, the beautiful and touching story of his parents' courtship unfolds. His father was from the city and came to his mother's village to become the schoolmaster. In the days of arranged marriages, the son discovers that his parents' marriage was the first marriage based on love.

Describes the wide variety of human remains, the use and abuse of them, what they reveal about life in the past, and contemporary attitudes toward the dead.

Is the Cemetery Dead? gets to the heart of the tragedy of death, chronicling how Americans are inventing new or adapting old traditions, burial places, and memorials. In illustrative prose, David Charles Sloane shows how people are taking control of their grief by bringing their relatives home to die, interring them in natural burial grounds, mourning them online, or memorializing them streetside with a shrine, ghost bike, or RIP mural. Today’s...

Through accessible language, this book helps readers understand what they might expect during and after a funeral. Full-color photographs introduce places, such as the cemetery, and objects, such as a coffin, that may be seen at a funeral. By providing readers with information about what to expect, they can better cope with their emotions surrounding this new experience.

"What happens at a funeral or memorial service? These are sometimes held in a church or temple so that the person can be remembered for their life. While many people at the service will be sad and it may seem scary, one way to say good bye at a funeral is to think about the happy times you may have had with the person who is gone. Did they make you laugh or feel loved? Discover what to expect at a funeral so you will be brave"--

"Norma and her parents are going to her great-uncle Frank's funeral, and Norma is more excited than sad. She is looking forward to playing with her favorite cousin, Ray, but when she arrives at the church, she is confronted with rituals and ideas that have never occurred to her before. While not all questions can be answered, when the day is over Norma is certain of one thing: Uncle Frank would have enjoyed his funeral. This sensitive and life-affirming...

Killing a bird with his slingshot as a boy, William Bellman grows up a wealthy family man unaware of how his act of childhood cruelty will have terrible consequences until a wrenching tragedy compels him to enter into a macabre bargain with a stranger in black.