It's been estimated that by the time most American children reach their teens they will have seen over 10,000 deaths in the cinema and on TV. But fiction puts a safe distance between the young and the realities of death. What's more, in the real world, the dying and the dead are removed from the house to the antiseptic confines of hospital and funeral home. As a result, most young people know little about what the death of a loved one means. To remedy this, 'death education' is being included in the curriculum in many schools throughout the United States. From kindergarten to high school, children are being asked to face the facts of death. What should children be told, and when? Everyman talks both to students and to professionals like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who, through her work in the hospice movement, encounters death every day. Is it right to expose children to the grim face of life's only certainty? Is death a necessary taboo, or can learning about it enrich young lives?