What About Me? When Brothers and Sisters Get Sick

What about me? This question, usually unspoken, lies at the heart of this poignant story, as a young girl attempts to cope with her brother's being ill. Beautifully written and illustrated, this story deals with the many complicated feelings the well child experiences in such a situation: guilt about having somehow caused the illness, fear that the sibling will die, anger over being left out, anxiety about catching the sickness, and longing for life to return to the way it was. The story will allow parents and their well children to take some time out for one another and to forge a renewed sense of family.

Allan Peterkin, MD, is an associate professor of psychiatry and family medicine at the University of Toronto and is the author of two children's books. He is a founding editor of ARS MEDICA: A Journal of Medicine, The Arts and Humanities.

Frances Middendorf is an illustrator who lives in New York City.

This is a sensitive and tender story about a subject rarely treated and yet so often experienced. It is a book that children and parents will benefit from reading. And I was moved by the book.
—Ellen Lewinburg, BSW (HON), PSW, MCAPPG, psychoanalytic child therapist, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Magination Press brings a new twist to books that adults write for children by avoiding the drearily didactic and preachy approach of the usual books in this genre, by adopting an imaginative and comical approach to the always-mixed feelings of human beings young and old, and by giving portrayals that are sound psychiatrically.
—Paul L. Adams, MD, Kempner Professor of Child Psychiatry, University of Texas Medical Branch