Diabetes in Fiction

Daisy Doodle is a regular high schooler – she’s got a summer job at a day camp, friends, and type 1 diabetes. Join Daisy as she navigates daily life with type one, and all the good, bad, and downright annoying that comes with it. Daisy Doodle is a collection of comics made by a T1D for T1Ds. It shares Daisy’s daily life, based on true stories, in the hopes of contributing to the amazing community of type 1 diabetics out there. This book was made in collaboration with the Diabetes Hope Foundation. All proceeds support DHF’s free programs & resources for youth living with type 1 diabetes.

Jake fills his days with hockey, school, hanging out with his friends… oh, and managing type 1 diabetes. But diabetes doesn’t always make sense, and during his trip to the diabetes clinic, Jake learns a new term that makes things even more confusing - DKA. Luckily, Jake doesn’t have to figure it all out on his own. With the help of a Health Fairy named Afreen, Jake goes on an adventure inside his body to understand what DKA really is. Through science, laughter and a whole lot of magic, Jake learns the importance of checking for ketones and gains the knowledge and power he needs to take action and keep himself safe! All About DKA is a collaborative project from the DHF community, written as the fourth book in the Nothing Can Stop Me series. Proceeds raised from the sale of All About DKA will be used to support DHF’s free programs and resources for Canadian youth living with type 1 diabetes. Learn more at www.diabeteshopefoundation.com.

Aastha is 10 years old, loves soccer, and never goes anywhere without her hoodie. Ever. She’s fast on the field and fearless with the ball, but there’s one thing she’s scared to share: Aastha has type 1 diabetes. What if her friends treat her differently if they find out? What if they don’t understand? As Aastha gets ready for her big game, she learns that being brave isn’t just about scoring goals – it’s about being honest and staying true to yourself. The Sideline Secret is a collaborative project from the DHF community, written as the third book in DHF’s Nothing Can Stop Me series. Aastha’s story highlights the day-to-day challenges that children living with diabetes face and their resilience to overcome them with type 1 diabetes.

When Abbi’s sugar goes low during dance class, she starts to wonder if she will ever be able to dance center stage without her diabetes getting in the way. When she meets David, a fellow dancer with type 1 diabetes, she experiences the power of community and realizes that nothing can stop her from dancing her dreams. Sweet Steps is a collaborative project of the DHF community. Written as the second book in DHF’s Nothing Can Stop Me series, Abbi’s story highlights the day-to-day challenges children living with diabetes face and their ability to overcome them.

After leading his team to victory in their first championship game, Matt notices that he isn’t feeling very well. After a visit to the doctor, Matt learns he has type 1 diabetes. During his stay at the hospital, Matt and his family learn how to manage diabetes, but Matt doesn’t know if he will be feeling better in time for the championship game...and wonders if he will still be good at hockey. Based on the story of the author, Bobby's, own diagnosis, Nothing Can Stop Me! is an inspirational story for children and their families that reassures and encourages them to follow their dreams and live their best lives. Proceeds from the sale of Nothing Can Stop Me! are used to fund free programs and resources for Canadian youth living with type 1 diabetes and their families.

Twenty years ago, Luna's aunt Juliette convinced Luna and her mother to write down their deepest secrets. She hid those secrets in a box. Then, in a pine forest far from home, Juliette buried what they wrote. Luna never planned to go in search of that box. Whatever secrets her mother and aunt wrote that day, Luna had wanted to remain buried. But when Juliette dies unexpectedly, Luna discovers her aunt was hiding more than the secret she buried twenty years earlier. Searching for answers, Luna returns to the small town Juliette had once loved; to the trees guarding their secrets. There's one problem. The pine forest is on private land. That land belongs to the sexy-but-guarded Jamie. The more Luna chases Juliette's ghost, the more uncertain Jamie becomes of her intentions, but the more time they spend together, the more their chemistry builds. It's complicated. And scary. Especially since the last thing Luna expected to find was love ... or herself.

Conor O’Toole has never been anywhere as casually glamorous as Cutters Neck, a gated community near Cape Cod. It’s a sweet deal for the summer: free lodging in a guest cottage in exchange for tennis lessons, luxuriously far from the cramped Yonkers apartment he shares with his diabetic mother. In this oceanfront paradise, however, new clients prove hard to come by, and Conor has bills to pay. Then a sharp-tongued divorcée appears, offering him double his usual rate. Soon he realizes Catherine is expecting additional, off-the-court services for her money, and Conor tumbles into a secret erotic affair unlike anything he’s experienced before. Despite his steamy flings with a woman twice his age, he simultaneously finds himself falling for the artsy, outspoken girl he met on the beach. Conor somehow finds a way to manage this tangled web—until he makes one final, irreversible mistake. A dark, explosive literary thriller that brilliantly skewers the elite, Whiting Award winner Teddy Wayne’s unputdownable novel is cinematic, shocking, and a psychological masterpiece.

SUGAR ISN'T EVERYTHING is Wilo Davis Roberts' much-needed resource guide for young diabetics. A detailed description of juvenile-onset diabetes (Type I) using a fictional form in which eleven-year-old Amy discovers that she has the disease, learns to treat it and to deal with her anger, and finally accepts that she CAN live with it.

Caleb Zelic, profoundly deaf since early childhood, has always lived on the outside - watching, picking up telltale signs people hide in a smile, a cough, a kiss. When a childhood friend is murdered, a sense of guilt and a determination to prove his own innocence sends Caleb on a hunt for the killer. But he can’t do it alone. Caleb and his troubled friend Frankie, an ex-cop, start with one clue: Scott, the last word the murder victim texted to Caleb. But Scott is always one step ahead. This gripping, original and fast-paced crime thriller is set between a big city and a small coastal town, Resurrection Bay, where Caleb is forced to confront painful memories. Caleb is a memorable protagonist who refuses to let his deafness limit his opportunities, or his participation in the investigation. But does his persistence border on stubbornness? And at what cost? As he delves deeper into the investigation Caleb uncovers unwelcome truths about his murdered friend – and himself.

All the stories died that morning … until we found the one we’d always known. When nine-year-old Rose is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, Natalie must use her imagination to keep her daughter alive. They begin dreaming about and seeing a man in a brown suit who feels hauntingly familiar, a man who has something for them. Through the magic of storytelling, Natalie and Rose are transported to the Atlantic Ocean in 1943, to a lifeboat, where an ancestor survived for fifty days before being rescued. Poignant, beautifully written and tenderly told, How To Be Brave weaves together the contemporary story of a mother battling to save her child’s life with an extraordinary true account of bravery and a fight for survival in the Second World War. A simply unforgettable debut that celebrates the power of words, the redemptive energy of a mother’s love … and what it really means to be brave.

A grandfather who lives abroad returns home to visit his adult children. The son is a failure. The daughter is having a baby with the wrong man. Only the grandfather is perfect—at least, according to himself. But over the course of ten intense days, relationships unfold and painful memories resurface. The grandfather is confronted by his past. The daughter is faced with an impossible choice. The son tries to write himself free. Something has to give. Per a longstanding family agreement, the grandfather has maintained his Swedish residency by coming to stay with his son every six months. Can this clause be renegotiated, or will it chain the family to its past forever? Through a series of quickly changing perspectives, Jonas Hassen Khemiri evokes an intimate portrait of a chaotic and perfectly normal family, deeply wounded by the death of a child and the disappearance of a father.

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxane Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.