Taking Diabetes to School

by Kim Gosselin ( Plainview, NY: JayJo Books, 2004.)

Illustrated by Moss Freedman

ISBN: 9781891383281

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Does your child have difficulty understanding their diabetes? How about trying to explain it to the friends and class mates? Not to worry, this colour illustrated book for primary age children contains a fully detailed story of a school boy with diabetes! In it he explains to his classmates about the disease and how he manages it. This story offers detailed insight into the day-to-day school life of a child with diabetes or any other chronic illness. Not only great for children, but also includes ten tips for teachers and a quiz for the children to take. Help your child understand their disease and feel accepted and safe! Their classmates will also be able to emphathise with them and help support them through a difficult aspect in their life!

This Side of Normal

by Eric Devine (Redmond, WA: Long Tale Press, 2009.)

ISBN: 9780981724935

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Ed Devlin's teenage years haven't been all that easy! Since his uncle died, his parents have not been getting along. His father drinks too much and his mother has lost hope in her husband. Ed's best friend has abandoned him in the hope of a relationship with a girl who is more likely to end up in jail then graduating. And if that ain't enough, Ed begins to feel unwell! It is soon discovered he has diabetes! For Ed, things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get any better. Like everything else, his health is beyond his control, and he will be forced to find a way through it, encouraging him to become someone new... someone stronger!

Wretched: This is My Sorry

by Katherine Marple (US: Create Space, 2008.)

ISBN: 9781434885272

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Katherine Marple's use of first-person descriptions make you feel as though you are reading her personal journal. What would you do if you loved someone, but the thought of loosing them is the reason you pull away? For Shane, this is his problem! He loves her but is afraid of her sickness. They've been together for years, but have grown apart. The constant fighting is sending them apart, but Shane clings onto her as much as he can, because he's afraid to let her go.

Drew Loves her because she seems to understand him. She's beautiful and open, exciting and his best friend. But he knows her heart belongs to Shane, no matter what she tries to believe. She isn't ready for him. Or is she? Her relationship with her mother is volatile; her father is calmy holding her emotions together; her diabetes is taking over her body and her life; and her passionate yet complicated relationships with men are simply stressing her out! She is confused and battling with every aspect of her life. How will she deal with her unrattled emotions and most importantly her illness, before she loses everything?

A Miracle for Maggie

by Stephen Eaton Hume (Vancouver: Beach Holme Pub., 2000.)

ISBN: 0888784155

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Dive into the lives of two people affected by diabetes: the patient and the doctor!

Set in the early 1900s,  a young girl named Maggie Davis struggles from diabetes and her father and Doctor, Dr. Davis struggles with his attempt to find a cure for the disease. Maggie is devastated by the death of her uncle, who was also a diabetic, and the fact that there is no known cure for the disease frightens her. Her father, has made his number one priority his daughter's life and will stop at nothing until a cure is found. One day, Dr. Davis stumbles across an article in The Toronto Star with the headline "Toronto Doctors on Track of Diabetes Cure." Deserperation sends himself packing with his daughter for the long trip to Toronto in search of Dr. Banting to help save his daughter's life. As the story shifts from Chester to London, Ontario, and then to Toronto, the story of Dr. Banting and his struggle to find a purpose for his life unfolds. The novel reveals Dr. Banting's fight to find a sponsor for his research, which will enable him to finally find a cure.

Stephen Eaton Hume's realistic novel not only gives insight on how diabetes affects people living with the disease, but also how it affects people trying to bring the disease to an end! This book will have you enthralled right down until the last pages!

Living With a Time Bomb

by Dianne Rains (US: Tate Publishing & Enterprises, 2006) 

ISBN: 1598862812

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Dianne Rains brings to life a fictional story that informs real issues that the chronically ill face every day.

Selma Benson, is diagnosed with diabetes when she was just a baby girl. After caring for ailing parents through their final years, Selma is faced with another challenge: she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis! The strength she found fighting diabetes for all those years, will be her strenght now to cope with the MS. How will she cope with two chronic illnesses and find her happiness she has been waiting so long for? This book will raise awareness for anyone facing a chronic illness.