Evie Walman is not obsessed with death. She does think about it a lot, though, but only because her family runs a Jewish funeral home. At twelve, Evie already knows she's going to be a funeral director when she grows up. So what if the kids at school call her "corpse girl" and say she smells like death? They're just mean and don't get how important it is to have someone take care of things when your world is falling apart.

Evie loves dusting caskets, polishing pews, and vacuuming the chapel — and on funeral days, she dresses up and hands out tissues and offers her condolences to mourners. She doesn't normally help her parents with the grieving families directly, until one day when they ask her to help with Oren, a boy who was in a horrific car accident that killed both his parents. Oren refuses to speak and Evie, who is nursing her own private grief, is determined to find a way to help him deal with his loss. (From Orca Book Publishers)

Sorry For Your Loss is a finalist for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text. The winner will be announced on Nov. 16, 2022.

Joanne Levy is an Ontario author of books for young people, including Double Trouble and Fish Out of Water. She is also the author of the middle-grade novels Crushing It and the Red Maple Award-nominated Small Medium At Large.