No Added Sugar: growing up with type 1 diabetes

Having been diagnosed at 13 with type 1 diabetes, Fibi Ward has written this book at the remarkable age of 14 because she has not been able to find the information she wanted from a young person’s point of view. As she says herself, this is not a medical book. Medical terms certainly come into it, but she is concerned mostly with ‘coming to terms with diabetes, the feelings I have been through… and the practical advice that I can offer from my own experience’. She deals firmly and fairly with her own emotional roller-coaster – whether to tell friends, the problems with over-anxious teachers, eating out, P.E., day trips, blood tests, holidays, going to clinic, parties and sleepovers, as well as a number of related subjects. As some of the information about dosages and equipment is fairly technical, this book might be of most use for young people some time after the initial diagnosis, when they are familiar with terminology. Having said that, this account belongs in every children’s ward library as well as in families. Fibi Ward is an author to be reckoned with and should have a fine career ahead, and her positive, honest and completely unpatronising style will be of real use to newly diagnosed children and young people.