ELAIC vs. PB

The novel "Extremely loud and Incredibly close" (ELAIC) and the graphic novel "Pride of Baghdad" (PB) show similarities and differences at the same time. At the first sight one would not see similarities in those two books but with a closer look some motifs overlap in the book.
Despite the fact that the graphic novels' main characters are animals and the novels' main character is a human, the circumstances the characters are encountered are similar. They are discovering a new situation, they have never lived before. Additionally the main characters, four lions in PB and Oscar Schell in ELAIC, somehow start a journey in the book. Oscars journey consists of a search for a locker that a key, he found in his dead fathers' closet, should open. The journey of the lions start with the bombing on Baghdad, when the zoo got damaged and made it possible for the animals to escape. They stray though the bombed city, which seems like a whole new world to them.

Death is another motif that can be found in PB and ELAIC. It happens in different ways, at different times but seems to be a "dominant motif" in the books. The two motifs, the journey and death, are connected to each other in both books in a contrary order. Oskar Schell faces death when his father died in 9/11, at the beginning of the book and of the following journey. In PB the four lions face death at the end of the story; it is their own death. The story starts with a journey into a unknown world and finishes with death.
Both stories talk about a specific journey through a insecure and new world. The other similarity death shows up in both stories, but also shows how different a situation with death can be.
Can death be the beginning of something new, or the ending of something you have looked for your whole life?