Review Sammi’s New Normal: The Storybook Illustrated Guide to Epilepsy (SIGuides 9)

I found this to be a captivating read. The tone of the story itself is spot on and I can see it hitting the right note with the target audience. I was surprised to read the note about this being the only resource of its kind in the US. Perhaps there is a case for more literature which stands alone? An epileptic hero -that would be good to see.

 

This was supposed to be barely fictionalised guidelines to help children with epilepsy adapt. The advice that most children will take from it - it will wreck your life, you'll never be able to do the things you love again, and the adults will be unsympathetic and use it to pressure you into doing the hobbies you hate and they think are appropriate - is far less than helpful or supportive.

Had Sammi been a boy, would she still have been told to dump trail-riding and BMXing for ballet? Something which, with her form of epilepsy so severe she cannot ride a bike, she would not be able to take part in anyway due to the risk to her partners.