I really enjoyed this book. As a parent of a child with Cystic Fibrosis I found this book to be useful. It allowed me to see into the lives of other families living with CF, to see the different stages that parents and those affected with CF go through during the course of the disease.

This book delineates how often we physicians in our efforts to serve a family with a child with a serious illness or a chronic problem forget that there are other children in a family who need our services. One woman at 27 told me that during her childhood when she came to see me in my office my first words were "How's your sister?" I never felt as tho I had a mother a father or a doctor in those days". How right she was. If I had read this book I never would have made this error. It is a must for all pediatricians. Morris Wessel, M.D.

I am an aspiring doctor and this text was a required reading for a pediatric internship. I read this book before my internship began and it helped me to get through this heart wrenching experience. At first it was difficult to read just because it really tugs at your emotions. However, once I made it past the first few stories I could not put the book down until I finished. Myra Bluebond-Langner does an incredible job of not only telling the stories of dying children, but she also gets into the innocent minds of the children enduring this difficult battle. This book is a must read for any aspiring pediatrician, or any aspiring physician for that matter. The way an innocent child views the innevitable can shed some light on how others may view the same situation. Althought parents might find this a tough read, it may help them to understand their child's point of view as well.

I work with issues involving the understanding of children in similar situations. What bluebound-langener has done is more than just tell us what goes on in the mind of sick child. She moves us to understand finally, that children do not fear entirely for their own lives, but vigilantly stand proud in the faces of death, subtly comforting thier doctors through thier smiles while at the same time watching their parents watch them die. One can only take a deep breath at the end of such a declaration of who children are and thank ms. bluebond-langner for what she has given to these children, and in turn how she has helped them to teach us.