Actually, I didn't read Black Beauty either, so I can't say it's a horse snuff-fic. (Loved that word, Carol.) It's just that others said they felt bad reading it, so I assumed it ended tragically.

The most horrible deathfic I read as a young kid was actually a poem, called Little Black Sara (well, that's the English translation of what it was called in Swedish - it may originally have been written in English for all I know).

Anyway, the poem is about this little black girl living in Africa. And she's dying. She is very, very ill, and there was a picture of her lying down, waiting for her death. And would you know the girl was happy? Well, you see, she was thinking of what the "white teacher" - apparently a missionary - had told her. He had said that Jesus loved her, and when she died she would come to Jesus in heaven, and in heaven she would be so, so happy. And the poem ended something like this:

And little black Sara was made white and pure in the blood of the Lamb.

Even as a kid who had never heard of racism I was uncomfortable that little black Sara was going to be white when she came to heaven. Why? If God had thought she should be black on the earth, why couldn't she be black in heaven?

But of course, it was a lot worse that little Sara would have to die when she was seven years old or something. Why couldn't she be given a longer time to live on this earth?

But the very, very worst thing was that Sara was so happy that she was going to die. She was happy, because she was going to heaven. And this poem was the sort of educating, moralistic piece that told kids what they should feel. I strongly felt that the poem asked me to be happy about little Sara's death. By extension, it asked me to be happy about the deaths of all other kids, too, at least all Christian kids. They, too, would go to heaven. Ultimately, the poem asked me to be happy if I were to be seriously ill and die as a kid, since that would take me to heaven. And if the thought of dying very soon didn't make me happy, it just meant that I was a bad girl, and I should be ashamed of myself.

To me, this is the perfect example of deathfic that doesn't celebrate life, whatever else you can say about it. But, okay, I can see that a kid who was dying herself might take comfort from it. But again, it depends on the child, and I can't imagine ever feeling good or soothed myself by "Little Black Sara".

Ann