When Abigail and Adrienne's mom told them she had cancer, they were afraid. When the two sisters couldn't find any books for kids that explained what might happen to their mother and what they might expect, they decided to write one themselves. The result? A humorous, honest, hopeful account of the year their mother underwent treatment for breast cancer, delightfully illustrated with drawings by both sisters.
The story of one mother’s fight against the medical establishment to prove the link between infection-triggered PANDAS and her son’s sudden-onset OCD and Tourette syndrome. The summer before entering sixth grade, Sammy, a bright and charming boy who lived on the coast of Maine, suddenly began to exhibit disturbing behavior. He walked and ate with his eyes shut, refused to bathe, burst into fits of rage, slithered against walls, and used his limbs instead of his hands to touch light switches, doorknobs, and faucets. Sammy’s mother, Beth, already coping with the overwhelming responsibility of raising three sons alone, watched helplessly as her middle child descended into madness. Sammy was soon diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and later with Tourette syndrome. Unwilling to accept the doctors’ prognoses for lifelong mental illness and repeated hospitalizations, Beth fought to uncover what was causing this decline. Beth’s quest took her to the center of the medical community’s raging debate about whether OCD and Tourette syndrome can be caused by PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections). With the battle lines firmly drawn, Beth searched until she found two cutting-edge doctors who answered that question with a definitive yes. Together, they cured Sammy. Five years later, he remains symptom free.
Parents get sick. Their lives change radically, and quickly. This book offers immediate, practical and experienced advice for adult family members and others responsible for the wellbeing of children when one parent has a serious illness. The authors are both clinical social workers with years of training and time spent with children and families in crisis. They establish a clear and authoritative voice, while keeping a tone of encouragement throughout. With its matter-of-fact language, the book is organized to make it easy for parents to turn to the sections they most need, when they need them. Collins and Nathan keep their readers focused on the child in every situation, while always supporting reasonable boundaries in positive self-care for the adults who serve them. The authors remind us that the task of parenting is hard enough, even when Mom and Dad are healthy, energetic and emotionally strong. Add a diagnosis of cancer, heart disease, or a debilitating accident to the mix, and parenting can quickly become overwhelming. They acknowledge that anyone faced with a serious health crisis will be challenged daily to decide on treatment options, to reorient priorities, and to deal with the many stages of grief that humans suffer when confronted with survival issues. They help us remember that one member’s illness will affect the entire family system, and explain how. The book is unique: • It deals with any kind of serious illness, not just cancer. • It explains how children of different age ranges commonly react to a parent’s illness, or other family crisis. • It suggests specific language in talking to children of different ages. • A full chapter is devoted to advantages and disadvantages of using information technology, rarely covered in other books on this topic. • Based on extensive qualitative research. • Includes excerpts from interviews with parents and children coping with illness in the family. Both authors rely on their training, but also on early life experience in which they encountered traumatic family events. As a teenager, Courtney Nathan lost her mother to breast cancer. Leigh Collins suffered a terrible accident as a young child, and was confined in hospital for many weeks. Their book reflects a dedication to other families who face such life-altering circumstances. The book has received wide endorsement from medical doctors and social service personnel who know the urgent need for this information for their patients and
The “Hollywood” where Sammy Santos and Juliana Ríos live is not the West Coast one, the one with all the glitz and glitter. This Hollywood is a tough barrio at the edge of a small town in southern New Mexico. Sammy and this friends—members of the 1969 high school graduating class—face a world of racism, dress codes, war in Vietnam and barrio violence. In the summer before his senior year begins, Sammy falls in love with Juliana, a girl whose tough veneer disguises a world of hurt. By summer’s end, Juliana is dead. Sammy grieves, and in his grief, the memory of Juliana becomes his guide through this difficult year. Sammy is a smart kid, but he’s angry. He’s angry about Juliana’s death, he’s angry about the poverty his father and his sister must endure, he’s angry at his high school and its thinly disguised gringo racism, and he’s angry he might not be able to go to college. Benjamin Alire Sáenz, evoking the bittersweet ambience found in such novels as McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show, captures the essence of what it meant to grow up Chicano in small-town America in the late 1960s. Benjamin Alire Sáenz—novelist, poet, essayist and writer of children’s books—is at the forefront of the emerging Latino literatures. He has received both the Wallace Stegner Fellowship and the Lannan Fellowship, and is a recipient of the American Book Award. Born Mexican-American Catholic in the rural community of Picacho, New Mexico, he now teaches at the University of Texas at El Paso, and considers himself a “fronterizo,” a person of the border.
Told in their separate voices, sixteen-year-old Prince Oliver, who wants to break free of his fairy-tale existence, and fifteen-year-old Delilah, a loner obsessed with Prince Oliver and the book in which he exists, work together to seek his freedom.
For decades, Life and Loss has been the book clinicians have relied on for a full and nuanced presentation of the many issues with which grieving children grapple, as well as an honest exploration of the interrelationship between unresolved grief, educational success, and responsible citizenry. This classic edition, which includes a new preface from the author, brings this exploration firmly into the twenty-first century and makes a convincing case that children’s grief is no longer restricted only to loss-identified children. Children’s grief is now endemic; it is global. Life and Loss is not just the book mental health professionals need to understand grief in the twenty-first century—it’s the book they need to work with grief in a practical and constructive way.
A good mind knows the right answers...but a great mind knows the right questions. And never are the Best Questions more important than after a diagnosis of breast cancer. Drawing on cutting-edge research and original interviews -- including with former surgeon general C. Everett Koop, bestselling author Dr. Susan Love, well-known breast cancer survivors like Betty Rollin, and experts at the top cancer-care centers in the world -- The 10 Best Questions™ for Surviving Breast Cancer is a guide you'll take with you into your doctor's office and keep close to you through every step of your treatment and recovery. In addition to the medical questions, you'll also learn what you need to ask your friends, colleagues, and loved ones so that the rest of your life doesn't take a backseat to your diagnosis: "How many days I can afford to be out?" (p. 211) "What questions are my children likely to ask?" (p. 261) "When will I be comfortable being intimate again with my partner?" (p. 234) With a wealth of resources and up-to-the-minute information, The 10 Best Questions™ for Surviving Breast Cancer shows you how to move past a scary diagnosis and use the power of questions to become your own best advocate for your emotional, mental, physical, and financial health.
Originally published as Fly a Little Higher and now updated and revised to coincide with the film release of Clouds, Laura Sobiech tells the amazing, true story behind the song and the movie. “Okay, Lord, you can have him. But if he must die, I want it to be for something big. I want someone’s life to be changed forever.” This is what Laura Sobiech prayed when she found out her seventeen-year-old son had only one year to live. With this desperate prayer, she released her son to God’s will. At that point, Zach Sobiech was just another teenager battling cancer. When his mother told him to think about writing goodbye letters to family and friends, he decided instead to write songs. One of them, “Clouds,” captured hearts and changed lives, making him an international sensation. This story is a testament to what can happen when you live as if each day might be your last. It’s a story about the human spirit. It shows how God used a dying boy from a small town in Minnesota to touch the hearts of millions—including top executives in the entertainment industry, major music artists, news anchors, talk show hosts, actors, priests and pastors, and schoolchildren across the globe. And above all, it’s an example of the amazing things that happen when someone shares the most precious thing he has—himself. “I’m not a musician; I’m just a filmmaker, and my prayer is that you get an opportunity—both through the reading of this beautiful book and the watching of our film based on it—to experience what I will fail to put into words: the magic and inspiration of Zachary David Sobiech.” —Justin Baldoni, filmmaker and director of Clouds