illness

Queen of Hearts

Marie-Claire Coté is fifteen-head-strong and full of life. It’s 1941, Canada is two years into World War II, and workers are scarce. So Marie-Claire pitches in on the family farm, tries to keep up with her school-work, and listening to stories told by her fun-loving hard-living uncle, Gérard. But the whole family is taken aback Gérard is diagnosed with tuberculosis and even more shocked when Marie-Claire and her younger brother and sister are all stricken with the disease and are sent to “chase the cure” at a nearby sanatorium located in the rolling hills of southern Manitoba. Marie-Claise fights her illness and longs for privacy in a place where there is none. She desperately wants to ignore the other “TB exiles” around her, especially her frail but irritatingly cheerful roommate Signy, who seems determined to become best friends. And then there’s fellow patient Jack Hawkings, the nineteen-year-old musician with the heart-stopping smile. Soon she discovers that the sanatorium is a world unto itself–a world in which loss can be survived, and friendship, and love can be found in unexpected places.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 4, Issue 3

Musica Para Todo El Mundo!/Music, Music For Everyone

Rosa plays her accordion with her friends in the Oak Street Band and earns money to help her mother with expenses while her grandmother is sick.

Prietita and the Ghost Woman / Prietita Y La Llorona

In a bilingual retelling of a famous Mexican legend, Prietita sets out to find the missing herb that can cure her mother’s illness and, while lost in the woods, comes face to face with the mysterious la Llorona, the ghost woman.

Goldie Locks Has Chicken Pox

Goldie Locks has

chicken pox;

from head to toe

were polka dots….

When Goldie Locks spies her first spot, her mother knows it must be chicken pox. Soon after, a steady stream of storybook favorites — including the Three Bears and Little Bo Peep — stop by to wish Goldie Locks a speedy recovery. But how will Goldie get well when her little brother just won’t stop teasing her?

Days Of The Blackbird

Gemma, a young girl living in the mountains of northern Italy, asks the blackbirds to sing to her ailing father, Duca Gennaro, and only one blackbird decides to remain when the weather becomes cooler. The story of the origins of the Days of the Blackbird.

Dancing through the Shadows

Into the pattern of Ellen’s days, filled with dance practice and vacation plans, comes an unwelcome surprise: her mother has breast cancer. Suddenly her family’s life hinges on endless rounds of hospital visits and support groups, cancer nurses and chemotherapy. Ellen learns to cope with her mother’s illness as she helps uncover an ancient secret that holds special meaning for her. As they work and learn together, her friends and teachers guide her through her own healing process shaped by life-giving water and life-affirming dance. In Dancing Through the Shadows, Theresa Tomlinson describes a family faced with a devastating crisis.

Ways to Live Forever

1. My name is Sam. 2. I am eleven years old. 3. I collect stories and fantastic facts. 4. I have leukemia. 5. By the time you read this, I will probably be dead. Living through the final stages of leukemia, Sam collects stories, questions, lists, and pictures that create a profoundly moving portrait of how a boy lives when he knows his time is almost up.

Jack Tumor

Hector is being hectored by an unlikely bully: a talking brain tumor. And it’s not just a talking brain tumor. It’s a know-it-all, pain-in-the-arse, jibber-jabbering brain tumor that names itself Jack, and insists on coaching Hector through life even as it’s threatening to take his life away. It’s a pretty good coach, actually. With Jack in control of Hector’s speech and brain chemicals, Hector suddenly finds himself with a cool haircut, a new fashion sense, and tactics for snogging previously unattainable hottie Uma Upshaw. But when Jack begins to force increasingly questionable decisions and behavior, Hector has to find a way to turn the tables – before it’s too late for both of them. Delightfully twisted, desperately funny, and deeply moving, this novel is also the winner of the Booktrust Teenage Prize in the United Kingdom.