Recommended Reading

We don't enter this world with an instruction book. In my opinion, this book, The Kids in Mrs. Hildebrand's Class, is a child's perfect instruction book to learning the basics of what someone going through conventional cancer treatment endures, and then learning how they can make a positive difference in that person's life.

I'm grateful I have not had to personally experience what millions of women do, breast cancer. However, cancer has taken several of my family members and friends and I know the emotional impact, not to mention that of the children. Adults sometimes forget that children don't understand, and, in the emotional chaos of it all, adults don't know how to explain the dreaded disease on a child's level.

The Kids in Mrs. Hildebrand's Class is about the experience of a teacher who went through all the traumas of cancer and its conventional treatments, and then proceeded to use her experience to bestow the grandest lesson upon her young students - that cancer is a serious life-threatening condition they will inevitably encounter in their lives or the life of someone close to them. They learn that for every one of their actions there is a reaction (emotionally and physically) to the one affected. Children also learn how their response, support and understanding can be the grandest therapy of all.

Every parent, educator, health professional and grandparent should purchase and read this book to a child because they will encounter someone they know who is diagnosed with cancer - here is the answer to "how do I tell them"? Why don't you buy one for a friend, too?