Books on Sibling Loss: 

 

Memoirs:

 

Bereft: A Sister's Story by Jane Bernstein - Bernstein was seventeen when her older sister, Laura, was stabbed to death. Twenty years later, she finds not only that she still needs to mourn, but also decides to reexamine her childhood, and learns about the details of her sister's death, grieves and claims her story.  

 

The Road to Coorain, by Jill Ker Conway - The death of her older brother, Bob, in a traffic accident is only one event in her memoir, but it is clear for the author that it was a defining one. "He had been like the sun in my universe," she writes, "and most of my aspirations at school and in my daily life had centered on winning his approval....I realized I would always be trying to live out his life for him." 

 

The Boy on the Green Bicycle by Margaret Diehl - Diehl was nine when her older brother, Jimmy, 14, was hit and killed by a car while riding the bicycle he'd just gotten for his birthday. Now in her 40's, Diehl, writes from the perspective of the child she was when Jimmy died. She captures the confusion and pain of children confronted with overwhelming loss.  

 

Visions of Gerard by Jack Kerouac - Kerouac's older brother, Gerard, died from a congenital heart defect when he was nine. The author was four at the time, "....for the first four years of my life, while I lived....I was Gerard, the world was his face....." This book speaks to the experience of those who were very young when they lost an older sibling and have fragmented memories, as well as to those whose lost sibling became a sainted ghost in the family.  

 

 

Borrow this book from our Lending Library:

 

Recovering from the Loss of a Sibling by Katherine Fair Donnelly

back to the sibling grief page