The Dementia Diaries: A Novel in Cartoons

author: Matthew Snyman
name: Wayne
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2016/08/06
date added: 2016/08/06
shelves: young-adult
review:
'The Dementia Diaries' by Matthew Spyman interweaves the stories of four young people who have grandparents with dementia. As with most books from Jessica Kingsley, it seems to be a good resource for people who need to understand something more.

We meet the four kids and their respective grandparents in a series of chapters that interweave the stories. There are stories of the relationships before and after. The news they got about the onset of dementia. How they have to cope with living with a person with dementia and how things are different and yet the same. Sam likes dancing with his Nanny. Brie's Granddad was a pharmacist. Fred's Gramps moves in and forces him to move into his brother Simon's room. Sarah's Grandpa is a local celebrity, only because he's lived in the local town for over 50 years. As the dementia gets worse, the kids have to adapt to different circumstances, but they do it because they love their grandparents.

The book is fictional, but the situations seem very real. Having a beloved elder go through something like this can be frightening and this book attempts to make it less scary. The book is divided into chapters with each chapter ending with some activities to help with things that were discussed in the chapter. My grandfather had Parkinson's disease, which is more a disease of the body than the mind, but I remember feeling similar things to the kids in this story. It would have been helpful to have a resource like this to help process how I was feeling.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Jessica Kingsley Publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.


via Wayne's bookshelf: read http://ift.tt/2aCOsiF