Life for any child growing up is about transitions - from hands and knees to feet in the first tentative steps, creative but unintelligible sounds to the beginnings of conversation, the long anticipated transitions from child to adolescent, from adolescent to adult. And there are so many other measures of growth in between growing up is a full-time preoccupation.

For a survivor of childhood leukemia, these transitions have a different timeline and there are other milestones in the journey that most kids will never have to deal with. This process begins the moment there is a diagnosis. In the world of cancer, a survivor becomes a survivor the day of diagnosis and remains one for the rest of their lives.

To this group Nancy Keene shares her considerable knowledge, and it is a journey she shares as the parent of a childhood cancer survivor. She is now a parent turned activist, author, and continuing champion of those who make the journey with her. She continues to produce thoughtful, well-researched and passionate guidebooks for the cancer survivor community.

New treatments in the last couple of decades mean there are more and more long-term survivors of childhood cancers, including leukemia. Childhood Cancer Survivors: A Practical Guide To Your Future, is resource guide that might be taken up at any point after diagnosis. But there is so much here I agree with the authors' preface note that perhaps it is best taken on an 'as-needed' basis to avoid being overwhelmed. A child just out of treatment may want to simply revel in a return to normal life before navigating the issues covered here, including follow-up care, navigating the legal, medical and educational system, relationships, and employment.

This is material for a lifetime, material which hopefully come out in successive editions as science continues to provide improved treatment options and perhaps even one day make many of these diseases obsolete with preventative therapies. But it does demonstrate that no subject is so overwhelming it can't be covered in one book. In the "anything is possible taken one step at a time" world, there is something comforting about the extraordinary energy harnessed sequentially into this one guide and labeled 'practical'. No magic here, just good old-fashioned hard work and a willingness to share the knowledge and wisdom with others.

When a child, or a parent is ready, this no-nonsense but compassionate guide will help make the future seem just a little more manageable. From diagnosis to a future scenario of college and a working life, the message here is that transitions mean growing up. They mean a future. To a survivor, the knowledge that the path has a new traveler's guidebook can sometimes be enough to take the first step.

Childhood Cancer Survivors: A Practical Guide to Your Future is available in our bookstore.