Want to read more books like The Gravedigger’s Cottage?

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Here are some more books about life going on after a death in the family

Defining Dulcie by Paul Acampora

Boy2girl by Terence Blacker

Feels Like Home by e. E. Charlton-Trujillo

A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd

The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson

Let's Get Lost by Sarra Manning

Girlhearts by Norma Fox Mazer

After the Wreck, I Picked Myself up, Spread My Wings, and Flew away by Joyce Carol Oates.

Cures for Heartbreak by Margo Rabb

A Gathering of Shades by David Stahler, Jr.

Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine

Me, the Missing, and the Dead by Jenny Valentine

‘tis the season…

I guess for me it’s ‘tis the season to be busy!  Sorry for neglecting the blog.  Interested in learning more about Chris Lynch? 

Some things you probably don’t know about him:

Before he became a writer, he worked as a furniture mover/truck driver and a house painter!

He went to Emerson College (right here in Boston)

His favorite television show is The Simpsons (why am I not surprised by that?)

If you want to read an interview with him, check out this link http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Chris-Lynch/16756570/author_revealed

Review of The Gravedigger’s Cottage by Chris Lynch

First of all, I apologize for my delay in posting this review!

This a book full of sadness.  The sadness of losing a parent (or two).  The sadness of losing a pet (or a long list of pets).  The sadness of moving to a new house in a new town, and then finding out your new house is called “The Gravedigger’s Cottage,” and that you and your brother are referred to as “Diggers” or “Diggerkids.” The sadness of watching your remaining parent withdraw further and further into his own anxieties until it seems like he doesn’t have any space for you anymore.  Fortunately, the book isn’t all about sadness –it’s also quite funny.  Even the stories of the pets deaths have a certain black humor to them, although I have to tell you that I had to skip over at least one of them.  I love the way Sylvia tells the story of her life with her brother (half brother, actually), Walter, and her father.  Her father has moved them to this cottage by the sea, supposedly to start a new life in a place not haunted by all those deaths, but after they move in, their father starts to obsess about fixing what’s wrong with the house (which is a lot).  Soon he’s not leaving the house at all, not even to do their annual back-to-school shopping trip, and it’s up to Sylvia and Walter to snap him out of it.  Review by Stacy Church