Meditations on Death

I am really liking this book, specifically because of its meditations on death. Oskar is a 9 year old who's dad died. To anyone this is a big, powerful, confusing event, but when compounded with his youth and 9/11 he's subconsciously trying to work these things out. It is very subtle. For instance, in the first couple of pages he talks about a lot of surface things that all have tinges of larger implications: His jiujitsu class and punching his teacher in the privates, The National Geographic, Ron buying him a drum set, all have larger implications. He refuses to punch Sensei Mark in his privates because he declares himself a pacifist. His dad died in an act of extreme violence, of course hitting someone is uncomfortable. Ron, his step dad offers to buy him a drum set, Oskar instantly sees this as attempt to replace his dad. He opens with "Money can't buy love, but I asked if it could buy Zildijian cymbals". And lastly, his meditations on death I find fascinating. He asks why people keep dying but the earth stays the same size, so one day there isn't going to be room to bury anyone anymore? That there are more people alive now than have ever died in all of human history. if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, there wouldn't be enough skulls. This kid is seemingly normal on the outside, but is a storm of ideas and philosophy, trying to process all of the problems and implications of the world and arrives at conclusions only children could come up with.