The Little Pink Book of (mostly) Cancer Cartoons

I recently received THE LITTLE PINK BOOK OF (MOSTLY) CANCER CARTOONS from the author, Kate Matthews.

A cancer survivor herself, Matthews used humor to cope with her disease, figuring that humor, anything that gives a cancer patient something to laugh about, matters a lot.

I think she's right. Because I'm not a cancer patient or survivor myself, I felt a bit as though I was looking in on cancer from the outside. While I am familiar with some of the perils wrought by cancer and cancer treatment (nausea, hair loss, pain, mastectomy, reconstruction, etc.), I have not lived through it. Kate has.

Her cartoons express the hardships and trials and pain and fear of cancer, yet the cartoons themselves, in color with simple lines (and I really liked them in color), don't lessen the emotions and struggles they convey. They lighten them. Give them voice. Humor. And, I think, release.

Some of the cartoons aren't cancer specific, one where a wife tells her husband that she won't tell him about her day, if he won't tell her about his. Another one that I really liked showed four different people and their responses to hearing the news about cancer from their friend. Denying it, cutting, topping it with a worse story and the un-comforting. We've all had people respond like this when sharing difficult news!

I've looked at the book several times, reading and rereading the cartoons. I like it more each time I read it.

Several months ago, I had a young woman come into the bookstore asking for something funny about cancer. Her mother had cancer and she was trying to find something that would help her see a little humor in her cancer. At that time I didn't have anything to recommend. Now I do!

The book is available in several different versions, digitally for the Kindle (not for the Nook at this time), a black and white paper version and a color paper version
You can get the book through Kate's facebook page for the book: www.facebook.com/cancercartoons

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