A Book for Young Cancer Warriors

 Review by Ronica Wahi

Cancer Daily Life

Writer: Carola Schmidt

Illustrator: Rafael Antonio

First published: July 11, 2020, Independently Published.

Kindle Edition Pages: 28. 

ASIN: B08GY5R77K

The Corona pandemic has taught us all how difficult it is to live with limitations placed on us. To read

“Cancer is…To feel like you don’t have to change anything in your habits when a pandemic starts.”

tells us how constrained a person suffering from cancer feels. It goes without saying that when that person is a kid, it is tougher. Yes, Cancer Daily Life, written by Carola Schmidt and illustrated by Rafael Antonio, lays bare the challenges that anyone with the disease seeks to surmount on an everyday basis. Yet, the book is not gloomy; it is hopeful and quite literally too, colourful.

The words and the illustrations go hand in hand to offer a whole package of life – therefore, there is mention of struggles, bounds, aches, joys, and fantasies. The cover shows a bird singing to a bald and smiling boy; this itself is indicative of there being a measure of the happiness quotient.

Because this book refrains from taking a unidimensional view of the daily life of a cancer patient, it is an asset for someone who is or has a loved one in the grips of the disease. The diets and the terrible-looking green juices – yes, even in the illustrations, the harsh reality of the change in some people’s attitude – shown by an illustration employing an interesting wordplay on “ghost”, and the pain resulting from the lack of tact in some well-meaning people balance out with the new-found bravery, the newness in self that comes through having undergone an experience one has not had before, and the people who become one’s new and sensitive companions.

There is a dash of humour too – for instance, the book says, “Cancer is…Sometimes, as weird as girls taking a vacation from waxing…” It says having faced the cancer trial, one is sure to emerge bolder, freer, and with newer perspectives and vigour, like the bird that’s happy once it breaks free of its cage in one of the illustrations.

Carola Schmidt does understand how people with cancer fret, for she has experience of looking after young cancer patients. At times, patients tend to read too much on cancer. The illustration depicting this has a young bald boy standing in front of a bookcase with books on cancer, among them Schmidt’s own works. Besides scientific content, she has penned some children’s books on the topic.

As Cancer Daily Life mentions, patients get anxious over the loss of their hair. For a child too, facing such loss and then facing the world could seem undoable. But as the book reminds, one shines, no matter what. Baldness certainly doesn’t take away a person’s beauty. Schmidt shows how to embrace baldness in her book Bald is Beautiful: A Letter for a Fabulous Girl, about which can be read here: To the Bald, Bold, and Beautiful!

Cancer Daily Life is most suitable for kids, considering the language and the kind of illustrations it has. It can help towards sensitizing kids who do not themselves suffer from cancer but may know someone who does. Adults may not find it apt for their age, but may be able to gift it to someone young who needs to know that cancer doesn’t and shouldn’t mean that one’s favourite things or feelings have lesser worth now.

Overall, the book seeks to lend strength through telling that cancer can be dealt with and that one isn’t alone in the arena, and to lend light-heartedness, without becoming at all oblivious to the fact that cancer is a tough battle to fight and win.

To all kids who face this ordeal called cancer, know that you have immense power within yourselves, that you will be even stronger in the future, and that there are people – your family, friends, and well-wishers – who continually think of and pray for you! 😊

 

Amazon India link for Cancer Daily Life (Kindle): https://amzn.to/3Cj690Q

Do watch Carola’s interview wherein she explains the approach for pregnant women suffering from leukemia, the ways in which cancer can be prevented in children, the way for patients to prepare for chemotherapy, and more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnbykKs_vlc

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