What Happens When Someone I Love Has Cancer?: Explain the Science of Cancer and How a Loved One's Diagnosis and Treatment Affects a Kid's Day-To-day Life

When Sara Olsher was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 34, her first thought was how to tell her six-year-old daughter without scaring her. As it turned out, explaining cancer was only the beginning. Treatment is long and causes a lot of ongoing changes in the family-all of which can be confusing, scary, and isolating for kids.

Join Mia and her stuffed giraffe Stuart as they explain the science of cancer and how a loved one's diagnosis and treatment affects a kid's day-to-day life. What Happens When Someone I Love Has Cancer? uses bright and fun illustrations to show how cells can turn into cancer, and helps reduce confusion about how cancer treatment affects a person and the kids in their lives.

"Most of the time we do the same things in the mornings. We wake up. We eat breakfast. (I like apples. Stuart only eats bugs.) ... when something big changes, what we do each day can change too. Stuart wants to know what happens to our days when someone we love has cancer."

Aimed at families with kids ages 4 to 10, this method of teaching is based on decades of solid science about how kids learn and cope with the major day-to-day changes that result from issues like cancer. What Happens When Someone I Love Has Cancer? is the perfect book for families that want to explain what cancer actually is and how it affects a kid's life, and applies to mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, and many types of cancer, including breast cancer, colon cancer, blood cancers such as leukemia, and bone cancers. 

By creating a routine that kids can see and understand, parents can restore a sense of safety and predictability in their kids' lives, helping them to be more resilient in the face of life's inevitable challenges. What Happens When Someone I Love Has Cancer? helps families that want to reduce their kids' anxiety surrounding a scary diagnosis. It aims to empower kids with knowledge, which is proven to help kids through traumatic situations.

Meet Mia and Stuart

With her messy pigtails and sunny personality, Mia brings a bit of fun to books about hard topics. Explaining life's toughest stuff to her toy giraffe Stuart, Mia is the star of the What About Me? book series, where she's able to help kids feel safe by explaining exactly what they can expect when faced with big changes.