By Sue Glader
A mother has cancer and loses her hair to chemo, and this rhyming picture book tells her child it isn't their fault and isn't something they can catch.
A little girl notices her mother's hair is gone — not on the pillow, not in the shower, just gone. The book follows her wondering where it went, in bouncy rhyme, and along the way it answers the questions a child of a parent with cancer tends to carry. Some days Mom is silly and fun, some days she's tired and cranky, and that's the medicine, not Mom turning into someone else. You didn't cause this. You can't catch it. In a wig, in a scarf, or bald, she's still your mom, and the book keeps saying it's what's inside that counts. It's a picture book about a parent's cancer that stays light enough to read again and again.
I'd reach for this the week a mom, or an aunt, or a grandma starts treatment and a child is watching the hair go. The rhyme and the funny pictures keep it light, so a child can take in the hard facts without being frightened by them. What it says most clearly is that the cancer isn't the child's fault, and that Mom is still Mom. It never promises the mother gets better, which sounds like a gap but isn't — it's what lets the book fit whatever your family is actually walking through.