Punk Wig

It is almost guaranteed that within a teachers first couple years of teaching he or she will encounter a student who will be going through or have a close family member who is sick with cancer. Being so young it is had to grasp all the hard concepts of cancer and what it actually means to have cancer. Lori Ries the author of Punk Wig does a fantastic job putting these hard to understand, scary concepts in ways that young children can comprehend. Most of the time when cancer is brought up, it is usually accompanied with a sad, downer mood. However, Punk Wig portrays different aspects of cancer as light-hearted and as fun as possible. It is a way to ease learning about this hard topic for children. 

Most parents and even teachers don't know how to teach and bring up these hard topics, they may feel like it will hurt the child to know the actual facts, so they just don't even go there. They think it is protecting the child, when in reality it is only hurting them in the long run. It is important children grow up knowing the truth about things that are going to happen to them in their life. The sooner they learn how to deal with it, the better off they will be. So I will definitely have this book in my classroom library for children to read. Especially if a child or a family member of a student in my class is fighting cancer then I will read it to the whole class, depending on the situation. But I believe that if everyone knows what is going on and that it doesn't have to be a scary topic it will create a lot less stress over the classroom atmosphere.