The Jellybean Kid: A tender family-friendly story about a young boy’s difficult health journey

By Tim J Huff and Margie Timpson

Sammy knows what it means to be brave. He is an ordinary kid who loves playing with his friends and family, and would eat a bucket of jelly beans—if his mom would let him! But he is also extraordinary. He lives with complex health challenges.

 

Follow Sammy’s journey—a life full of joys and struggles, pain and comfort, love and hope. Along the way, meet Sammy’s family and friends, and the medical care givers in his world.

 

The Jellybean Kid is the sixth book in the Compassion Series, written for children and the grownups in their world to foster thoughtful, meaningful, and compassionate conversations in families, classrooms, and communities. The comfort guide will help you process the sensitive experiences unique to young people living with critical or chronic illnesses and other serious health issues. The guide also provides an insightful look at the experiences of family members, health workers, and others who lovingly care for them. Guided by profound, shared real-life insights, this tender book helps children and adults to better support families with a child experiencing chronic or critical illness, and nurtures understanding and compassion among those who have not journeyed the same road.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Castle Quay Books
• Release date: May 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781988928500

Tim J Huff

Tim has dedicated his adult life to full-time charitable work, serving, learning and teaching across North America and internationally. Throughout his career, he has combined his passion for visual arts, writing and music with his commitment to social justice and compassion-focused initiatives. He is an acclaimed speaker, a best-selling author and award-winning author-illustrator of children’s books. His book titles, of which seven have either been nominated for or won national awards, include: Bent Hope: a Street Journal, Dancing with Dynamite: Celebrating Against the Odds (which won Best Canadian Book of the Year award in 2011), The Yuletide Factor: Cause for Perpetual Comfort and Joy, and his previous illustrated children’s books, The Cardboard Shack Beneath the Bridge: Helping Children Understand Homelessness, It’s Hard Not to Stare: Helping Children Understand Disabilities, The Honour Drum: Sharing the Beauty of Canada’s Indigenous People with Children, Families and Classrooms, Am I Safe: Exploring Fear and Anxiety with Children, Make Way for the Christmas Hush , and The Jellybean Kid-A Tender Family-friendly Story About a Young Boy’s Difficult Health Journey, all published by Castle Quay Books.

Book preview

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THE JELLYBEAN KID

Copyright ©2022 Tim J. Huff

978-1-988928-49-4 Soft Cover

978-1-988928-50-0 E-book

Published by:

Castle Quay Books

Burlington, Ontario

Tel: [phone]

E-mail: [e-mail] | www.castlequaybooks.com

Edited by Marina Hofman Willard

Cover and internal Illustrations by Tim J. Huff

Cover and book interior design by Burst Impressions

Printed in Canada.

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form without prior written permission of the publishers.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The jellybean kid : a tender family-friendly story about a young boy’s difficult health

journey / written by Tim J. Huff and Margie Timpson ; illustrated by Tim J. Huff.

Names: Huff, Tim, 1964- author, illustrator. | Timpson, Margie, author.

Description: Series statement: Compassion series ; 6

Identifiers: Canadiana 20220150125 | ISBN 9781988928494 (softcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Chronically ill children—Juvenile literature. | LCSH: Chronically ill children—Care—

Juvenile literature. | LCSH: Chronic diseases in children—Juvenile literature. | LCSH:

Compassion—Juvenile literature.

Classification: LCC RJ380 .H84 2022 | DDC j618.92/044—dc23

A Message from the Authors

From the start, we knew that this little book would be a great challenge to create. Not just a monumental challenge around offering words that would be equal parts truthful and tender, but a challenge for our hearts and the hearts of those who so graciously shared their experiences and insights with us.

Over time, words and terminology often take on new, and sometimes very different, meanings. During the seasons we crafted this project, we used the words and terms that resonated most with the many families and healthcare professionals that engaged with us. Even as so many things change—such as meanings and