I first read this book in about 4th or 5th grade and loved it. I would draw a bath and grab this book and reread it, crying, laughing, and crying some more. I loved it so much that I put it on our class/community library for others to discover and love. Of course, someone didn't bring it back and it took me years to find my own copy again. But in the meantime I would check it out from the library over and over, even into my 20s.

This is a children's book that features a young girl dealing with her mother's cancer and eventual death.

Sarah's mother is diagnosed with incurable melanoma. The only factor in the book which dates it, and sets it apart from the New Zealand experience, is Sarah's unfamiliarity with melanoma. Sarah goes through most of the stages of anticipatory grief, including denial. Sarah's mother dies late Christmas Eve, at home, with Sarah and her father present. Sarah's mother leaves Sarah a notebook with everything she felt Sarah needed to know.

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