Author: Simone Colwill
Publisher: Books For Caring Kids (no website found)
Rating: WORTHY!
Illustrated by Jasmine Ting.
This story is sweetly illustrated by Jasmine Ting, and well-written by Simone Colwill, who suffers from Crohn's disease, which is an inflammatory disease of the digestive tract, which is to say it's unpleasant at best and painful at worst. She wrote this book to help children who may have a sick guardian, parent, or relative to understand how they can help. She's also, unfortunately, not in favor of same-gender couples being allowed to adopt children.
I found that to be an awful position to take regardless of what personal parenting issues a person might have experienced as a child. It was a lamentably genderist approach to take, too, trying to suggest that "Mothers respond to the needs of the child and show concern for their emotional and physical safety. A father's play takes a more rough-and-tumble approach." That has nothing to do with this book, however, and it was not a factor in my decision on how to rate it - nor should it be because this is a review of the book, not the writer, and this blog is about writing, not authors.
So the book tells us that Jonathan has been a super hero since birth. With his side-kick, bear, he wears cool clothes and carries cool gadgets, and saves the world. When his mom gets sick and is hospitalized, Jonny has to ponder what a super hero can do to help. The thing I liked about this is that it wasn't all doctors all the time, which is the mistake all too many movies, TV shows, and books make. The author quite obviously has personal experience of this and has listed many or the people who work in a hospital, not forgetting the house-keeping staff, which is commendable.
One issue I had with this parade of aid is that nurses appeared fifth in the list when they actually ought to have appeared first given that they are the ones who have most frequent and direct contact with the patient! If you're admitted to a hospital you will see one or more doctors and you will see nurses routinely. You may or may not see any of the others depending on the reason for your admission.
That said, the book does a good job in showing Jonny being helpful (not always wisely, but he's a kid!), and in the end, he does learn which super power is most useful of all in circumstances like these. This is why I rate this book a worthy read.
