"There is a beginning and an ending for everything that is alive. In between is living."

Author: Bryan Mellonie
Illustrator: Robert Ingpen
Format: Paperback
Published: Random House, 1983

"There is a beginning and an ending for everything that is alive. In between is living." Poetic text and beautiful, realistic nature drawings represent death as another part of living. Initially, Mellonie uses plants and animals to explain that different creatures have different lifetimes. Towards the end of the book, the notion of a lifetime is extended to people. "It may be sad," the book states, "but it is the way of all things, and it is true for everything that is alive."