Book: What Happens When Someone I Love Has Cancer

What Happens When Someone I Love Has Cancer is a book written with purpose of relieving the anxiety and confusion that comes from a parent, sibling, or other loved one's cancer diagnosis and treatment.

• ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "I love your books! You use the same wording so many child life specialists use to explain cancer. Thank you for writing these books!" — Amy F., CCLS.

• ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "This was an excellent book to help us explain a family member's cancer diagnosis to our 4 year old. It explains it in an accurate but not-so-scary and age appropriate way." — April, an Amazon customer.

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

Join Mia and her stuffed giraffe Stuart as they explain the science of cancer and how a child’s diagnosis and treatment affects their day-to-day life. What Happens When a Kid 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 kid’s life.

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.

About the Author

Sara Olsher is the founder of Mighty + Bright, which helps families through hard things like divorce, cancer, and other major changes using visual magnetic calendars. Based on decades of research about emotional intelligence and how to talk to kids so they actually learn, Mighty + Bright's calendars have helped hundreds of families through some of the hardest times in their lives.