A shelf for the family where the patient is your own child. Not a grandparent, not a friend — them. Reach into it for the one that matches today: a first hospital stay, a port and a chemo schedule, hair coming out, a long afternoon of pain with nothing to do but wait. Curious George Goes to the Hospital is a good place to start if you're just standing here not knowing where to look. Here's the thing you're probably scanning for, so let's not make you hunt: in some books about sick children, the sick child dies. Not on this shelf. We checked the ending of every one of these. Every sick child in these six books is alive at the end, and Kathy is two years cancer-free. The one caution is The Honest Truth, where nobody dies but a twelve-year-old sets out meaning to — that one has its own warning below, in bold, and it earns it.
Reach for the one that fits what's happening, and route by two things: your child's age, and what's actually going on this week. Curious George Goes to the Hospital and Franklin Goes to the Hospital are both for a stay rather than a diagnosis, and they split by what your child needs — George maps out the building and the sequence, Franklin goes after the fear underneath, and Franklin's the one if your child has gone suspiciously cheerful on you. Chemo to the Rescue is narrow and specific: reach for it if the word in your house is leukemia. Kathy's Hats is for the week the hair starts going, and for the dread of walking back into a classroom. Imagine a Rainbow isn't a story at all — it's a script to read while your child hurts, and it belongs in the hospital bag, not on the shelf. The Honest Truth stands well apart from the other five: a real novel for an older child, and heavy. Read the individual warnings. They're doing real work on this shelf, more than usual.