I don't think kids have a problem with death. It's us older ones who are nearer to it, that start being frightened.
Acting engenders and harbours qualities that are best left way behind in adolesence.
The reader feels as if he is in Chongjin, where starving people ate the bark off trees; or atop Mount Taesong with the elite of Pyongyang, whose existence is a mix of sadism and whimsy; or with the masses who are bombarded day and night with the propaganda of North Korea's alternate reality.