Tickles Tabitha's Cancer-tankerous Mommy Books

I purchased this book along with Sammy's Mommy Has Cancer because my mom has been diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. This book does help to explain what is going on with a cancer patient. My girls (2 & 3) and I can somewhat identify with it because we play "tickle monster." My girls seemed to like the book (but not as well as Sammy's Mommy Has Cancer), because we have read it more than once, but I feel that it had quite a few words for kids the same ages as mine. My 3-year-old also wanted to know what was wrong with the peoples' eyes, because of the way they were drawn. Kudos to those who worked to put this book out there, it is a good tool to help to explain a somewhat difficult subject.

Tabitha's mother has cancer and has to undergo chemotherapy. The treatments make the mother's hair fall out and give her a huge appetite. Worse still, the treatment makes her tired and irritable. Tabitha misses their warm tickle games. Tabitha, her brother and even the cat get frightened when their mother gets angry. When their father sees this, he uses love and humor to help provide support. Tabitha finds a way to get her mother to show her old warmth.

The superb illustrations are warm and expressive. When the picture shows the shadow of the angry mother, wig askew, standing over Tabitha, one really gets the sense of how Tabitha experiences her mother just then.

Mood changes are more difficult for children to understand than the more concrete aspects of an illness. This book does an excellent job of showing how these mood The story is realistic without being scarey. This book would be good not just for children of cancer patients but also for children of parents withother chronic diseases such as Hepatitis C. A variety of illness and treatments can cause an individual to be irritable or moody.

Beautifully illustrated, the story offers a child's perspective of mommy's cancer-tankerous moods during cancer treatment.

I'm of the mind that children should be given details about issues faced by families. It's naive to assume that by shushing conversations within ear shot of kids, they will be kept protected from the truth of illness.

Cancer treatments are no picnic in the park. Amelia makes that clear in her book, without sacrificing the clear message of love for her family. If you are a mom going through cancer treatment, I would highly recommend this book.

This review is posted on my blog. www.breastofcanada.blogspot.com

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer this year, one of my girlfriends bought this book for my daughter. I recommend it highly. Side effects of chemo (and their accompanying steroids) have made me, like Tickles' Tabitha's mom, cranky and tired and shorter on patience than I would like to be, and this book takes those problems and presents them as temporary setbacks; the book reminds children that things will not always be grouchy, and that a mommy with cancer still loves her child even when she's not up to the usual fun and games. This book has been useful to our family, our daughter enjoys it... and it's helped us to normalize a situation that is anything but normal.

My 6 year old daughter loves this book. Her mom was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and this book deals with issues like crankiness, which is relevant in her life right now. It also covers hair loss, which she is particularly interested in. (The tickling helps make the book more fun, too.) I would recommend this to those who like to add some humore to a bad cancer day.