I have three beautiful books to share with you.
Books that can help families talk about cancer and other serious illnesses
Books that serve as windows and mirrors for children and their grown ups
Books that help us all to process our thoughts and emotions
Books to share with those we love and want to understand and support
First is The Perfect Shelter by Clare Helen Welsh and Asa Gilland
The Perfect Shelter tells a tale of sibling love, the bond between sisters and the heartache and terror when someone you love falls sick.
This book tells of two sisters who love to build dens together. We are invited in to join their play through repeated refrains and beautiful detailed illustrations. Together they build the perfect shelter. We see them playing together, working together, loving each other. Soon we notice that something is not right. One of the sisters is sick.
This beautiful book is very clever as we see the sister become more tired and frail, the parents become sad and tearful. We see the confusion and strong emotions that come to the other sister. The anger and helplessness. The questions. So many questions. As the situation becomes more serious the weather mirrors the emotions. We imagine the family shouting into the storm, howling with the wind and crying a river of tears in the rain. The shelter is damaged by the storm as the sisters are hurt by the illness. As the storm eases the intensity of the illness subsided as the family try to find a new normal and build a new perfect shelter together.
The illustrations gently introduce hospital stays and doctors, medical equipment and hair loss. The pain and heartbreak is mixed with love and positivity and hope.
This is a very special book and is going to become important for many families and young people.
This is a powerful story of love, hope, togetherness and courage. An incredibly emotional readaloud and one my own children keep returning to and reading over and over again.
Next is Pear of Hope by Wenda Shurety and Deb Hudson
This is the story of a little girl who has cancer and the journey of her recovery.
Pear Of Hope shows how Anna’s recovery is intertwined with the growth of a pear tree in her garden.
Anna loves the pear tree at the bottom of her garden. It is home to lots of wild creatures, it is where Anna climbs and hangs and plays. The pear tree was Anna’s secret hideout until she got sick. The intense sadness and pain of Anna’s illness is shown through the weather in the garden, through summer turning to autumn and a dark bare starless winter. When spring comes Anna returns. She has lost her hair. She begins to spend time beneath the blossom filled branches of her pear tree. “A canopy of comfort.” As spring warms Anna grows stronger. She plants a pear seed from her favourite tree. As the new tree grows so Anna’s hair grows and her strength and colour return.
“A green shoot, a tuft of hair.
A seedling, a curl.
A sapling, a bob.
A tree, a ponytail.
A new pear. Hope.”
This is such a wonderful story. It offers hope to children who may be poorly like Anna. It helps others understand how Anna might feel through her recovery. A journey that can seem so slow. We talked a lot about patience and hope and how we might help someone who was recovering from illness like Anna. We wondered how we might feel after being so poorly and what might give us strength and courage and hope. This story is beautifully told and the illustrations are just lovely.
A story of hope for any child who might be struggling to feel positive, whatever journey they might be on.
The third is an amazing book written by Karl Newson in the middle of his cancer treatment.
This is a story of love & hope, kindness & friendship. It is dedicated to his friends & family and to our amazing NHS.
It is a story that Karl hopes will help anyone who needs it & I am here to say that it has helped our family beyond measure as we learn together how to piece back the broken shards of our hearts & find light again at the end of a very dark tunnel.
How To Mend A Friend is a heartfelt & hopeful story. It introduces children to the concept of empathy & the many ways in which people cope with difficult times & deal with sadness & how we all need support.
I love that this book shows children that all feelings are valid. All the ways we process grief, anxiety & sadness are valid & normal. No two people will react in exactly the same way to a situation. We all need different kinds of support when times are dark and uncertain.
In this book beautifully illustrated by the wonderful Clara Anganuzzi we can see all the many ways to be a friend, to support & mend a friend when they need us most.
(Click through the photos below to see Clara’s stunning illustrations)
Each person we know will need something different, each person may need completely different things from one day to the next, one hour to the next.
Grief and pain are complicated & the most important message in this stunning book is that the very best way to be a friend & to love and support a friend is simply by being you.
This tale is told so very tenderly in words & pictures.
I would love to buy a copy for all my friends & family & for anyone struggling with big emotions & tough times of their own.
The pretty pictures with a gorgeous menagerie of animal characters have really helped my children to understand the complexities of grief & feeling, of living with loss & living through the darker, the darkest, moments of our lives. It has helped us all learn how to support one another during our times of sadness & how to hold each other together & fix one another with love & kindness, understanding & hope.
Three beautiful and brilliant books
That should be in every classroom, library and home
Books that help
Books that matter