We’re eager to share with our community that Experience Camps Chief Clinical Officer, Brie Overton, just published a new book for grieving families called My Grief Comfort Book (Storey Publishing, 2025). This activity book aims to help young children deal with the death of someone special–whether it’s a person or pet–by providing kids with creative projects that help them process their feelings. We spoke with Brie to learn more about why she wrote the book and what she hopes families will get from it.
What was your intention when you wrote this activity book?
Having worked with grieving families for over 17 years, I know how many folks are looking for ways to support their kiddos through activities that allow them to communicate their feelings while engaging in an activity. Living through COVID changed a lot for most of us. While grief is obviously not new and existed way before the pandemic, most of us were experiencing far more death and non-death losses on a daily basis. During this time, counselors like myself were trying to provide as many activities as possible to help families navigate all the changes and losses. That’s why I created this book.
What other goals did you have in writing this book?
It was important to me that my book not only offered engaging activities but included all the materials needed for them (the stickers, cards, templates, etc.); they are all included at the end of the book. From an equity perspective, I wanted caregivers to be able to do all the projects together without having to leave the house to go buy materials at a store. Caregivers are dealing with enough issues without having to spend money and time purchasing extra art supplies. Plus, I did not want young readers to be annoyed that they didn’t have the necessary materials in the house to do the activities when they wanted.
How do you think this book will help kids and caregivers?
The book helps normalize that we all grieve but even members in our same family can grieve differently. Grief is what we feel when someone we care about dies. We may feel a lot of different feelings like sadness, loneliness, hurt, anger, worry, even relief and happiness. All of these feelings are a part of grief and are welcome. The activities in My Grief Comfort Book will help readers name and work through these feelings in creative and fun ways. It provides kids and caregivers with the language and tools to help them process their grief.
Can you share one sample activity with us from the book?
Yes, of course! “Grief X-rays” is an activity that encourages acknowledging the ways in which our bodies carry our grief. Some days our feelings are heavy and weigh us down; other days it feels lighter and less of a load to carry.
With crayons, markers, or pencils, we invite readers to use the activity sheet to show what their grief feels like on the inside of their body. The book asks, “Are your shoulders heavy like a bag of rocks? Do your insides feel gray like a rainy day? Does your chest feel tight like a rubber band is wrapped around it? Do your feet feel cold like a block of ice?” And after they answer, kids are encouraged to draw where they feel the grief in their body and describe how it feels to name that it is there and very much a part of us. Once we acknowledge the feelings, we can move on to learning how to cope with them.
Learn more and purchase My Grief Comfort Book.
More about Brie: Brie Overton, Chief Clinical Officer at Experience Camps, is a doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri – St. Louis in the Department of Counseling and Family Therapy, where she educates and supervises master and doctoral level students on grief-specific issues in counseling. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor and specializes in anticipatory loss, grief and bereavement, life transitions, and working with underserved populations. She is a member of the Association for Death Education and Counseling and has worked as a clinician and Clinical Director for Experience Camps since 2016.
