This paper presents data from a multi-year ethnography of a rural preschool in the United States in which children engaged in substantial free and structured imaginative play. An unexpected parent death during the course of the data collection period was followed by a spate of death-related play and storytelling by the children, with varied adult reactions. These analyses explore this death play, problematise the adult responses to ‘inappropriate’ play and stories, and question the sanitised and curated nature of what play – and by extension what children – are valued and valorised in preschool. Implications for how children’s unruly or uncomfortable play is understood and acted upon by adults, and the complex importance of play in early childhood learning contexts, conclude the paper. (author abstract)