By Gary Whitta and Ted Naifeh
Image Comics
Paperback

DJ is a cheerful, friendly boy starting his first day at a new school but for some reason he's having a hard time fitting in with the rest of the kids.

Maybe it's because his father is the Grim Reaper. Maybe it's because he's a pint-sized skeleton in black. Or maybe it's because plants and animals seem to always die in his wake.

But DJ isn't the kind of kid who let's things get him down and soon enough he befriends a small group of fellow misfits: Pandora, a charming girl with a compulsive need to open anything locked regardless of the consequences; Smith and Weston, twins conjoined at the head who have a gift for disastrous inventions; Stigmartha, a waifish girl who bleeds from her hands when she gets upset and The Seep, a smart-talking limbless boy who lives in a giant mechanical pickle jar.

The only real trouble in DJ's life is the fact that his father is reluctant to bring him into the family business until he's a little older.

Death, Jr. Excerpt DEATH: Well...you about ready for your birthday present, sport? What, you didn't think I'd forgotten, did you? There are two things you can count on in this life, son. Taxes...and your old man. © Gary Whitta & Ted Naifeh Published with permission

But then the kids go on a field trip to a museum. DJ and his friends sneak away from the main group and find a small box said to contain a terrible demon. Of course, Pandora just can't resist opening it and what comes out of the box is far worse than a terrible demon.

It's DJ's Uncle Moloch, who is determined to take over the family business by force and bend it to his own evil purposes. Uncle Moloch imprisons the Grim Reaper in the box and begins to wreak havoc on the world.

It's up to DJ and his friends to save his father and restore the balance of Life and Death to the world.

Bookworm's Briefing
Death, Jr.'s charm stems from the odd combination of wry morbid commentary on the nature of death and an unapologetic Father-Knows-Best romanticism. It is difficult to say what age this is targeted towards.

Though it is full of monsters, grotesquery and death, it somehow manages to always convey a sense of optimism and hope. Ultimately, it humanizes death in a way that is neither didactic nor patronizing. This might be the perfect story for a preteen struggling to come to grips with the concept of death.