Jessi's Wish

Reach for this book when your child is struggling to understand a friend or peer's serious medical diagnosis. This story follows Jessi Ramsey as she befriends a young girl with cancer, providing a sensitive entry point for children to process feelings of helplessness, sympathy, and the reality of illness. It explores the nuances of friendship when one person is going through a life-altering challenge, emphasizing that support often means just showing up. Written for the 8 to 12 age range, it balances the heavy subject of childhood cancer with the familiar, comforting structure of the Baby-Sitters Club series. Parents will appreciate how it models proactive empathy and helps normalize the presence of illness in a community without being overly clinical or despairing.