How This Book Changes Lives

Why Health Care Professionals, Literary Reviewers, and Parents Recommend This Book for Bibliotherapy

  • “A must-read children's book for all...It is BEYOND moving and hands down the most touching and meaningful children's story I have ever read.”

    -Erica Abrams Cleary

  • “This book is just so amazing!!! It made me see that day we received it that all my stress was not worth the energy I was allowing it to take. I spent the day swinging and playing with Ivory. GUESS WHAT!?!?! She climbed the stairs for the slide about 4 times 3 with my help and then the last time she looked at me and said “It’s my time to fly mommy.” I stood there watching her climb the stairs worried she would fall but she didn’t, she did indeed fly just like a ladybug she is.”

    -Julie Isaac, Mom of Ivory, Brain Cancer Survivor

  • “The Palliative Care Team here at Nationwide Children's Hospital have used her book for bibliotherapy for families whose child/children have serious medical conditions resulting in a short, beautiful life. Carole’s work, her themes and ideas, resonate with many parents facing having a very sick child. Health care professionals also admire her work for using allegory and storytelling to keep focus that a child’s short beautiful life is always the center of the medical decision making process.”

    -Janine Penfield Winters, M.D., Physician Director, Palliative Care, Nationwide Children’s Hospital

  • “Your book is a gift to me because the story opens a door for dialogue with parents and families and it speaks to them parent to parent not social worker to parent…and while each child and family is unique, it also lets them know that there is someone else in the world who truly understands. Your book is a beautiful legacy, and you are helping others along their own personal journeys more than you can possibly know. I am so grateful for your help in doing this work.”

    -Felicia M. Hunter, BSW, Journeys Pediatric Palliative Care, Albany Medical Center

  • “I first heard of The Gift of the Ladybug during that last hospital stay. I ordered a copy with an Amazon gift certificate given to us by a generous and caring random Facebook friend (amazing how totally random people can touch our lives like that). It didn't arrive until shortly after he passed. I read it with Ethan (his brother) though and I gifted a copy to the boys' school. I shared it with everyone who Tarok was close to because I was so blown away at how Polkadot had captured Tarok's zest for life, his uniquely positive perspective, his acceptance of his circumstances and his refusal to let them stop him from doing anything he wanted to in his own special way....and his beyond his years wisdom. Carole captured the essence of that and put it in a book in the simplest and sweetest way.”

    -Erin Donovan, Mom of Mitochondrial Warrior Tarok

  • The Gift of the Ladybug is a treasure unlike any other I have read. It teaches us to embrace our differences in a way that is heartfelt and honest. May we all be blessed with a ladybug in our lives as special as Polkadot.

    -Jennifer Taylor, Project Manager of Bobby's Books

  • “So I finally had a moment to sit down and read through my mail. To my surprise one of my special mommies sent me a signed copy of the book, "The Gift of the Ladybug", a book I had been wanting for a very long time! I sobbed as I read it. I thought how ironic that I received it on worldwide rare disease day! There are Only about 500 kids in the world with Abbey's disease, PDCD, and I was blessed to be the mommy to one of them, my ladybug..."for the rest of Polkadot's sweet life, the horses cherished the fact the (s)he was a ladybug. They slowed down their hardworking ways, perfected countless bug-a-licious recipes, sang, danced, and played with Polkadot. They even caught a glimpse of what it was like to fly."...thank you my friend, my heart needed this tonight.”

    -Friend of Kerry Greenwald

  • "The Gift of the Ladybug" is a masterful example of bibliotherapy, beautifully presented.”

    -James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief, Midwest Book Review

  • “The most amazing children’s book I have ever read.”

    – Anita Birk, Mom of Owen, Founder of Mommies of Miracles (the largest virtual support group of mothers of children who have special health care and/or developmental needs)

  • “It's such a profoundly sweet story, which was so indeed true in our situation. I then decided that this year to honor Lainey I would purchase as many copies of this book that I could to donate to mine and other Obstetricians' offices and to libraries. This book would be helpful to share with young children who may experience a tragic loss within their own families and help heal hearts of grieving parents.”

    -Liptrap Failey, Mom of Lainey

How This Book Changes Lives