As our children grow older and continue to experience food allergies and/or complications from reflux such as tube feeding, it can be hard for them to understand why they are different. There are a number of children’s books that have been written about food allergies, eosinophilic oesophagitis (EE) and feeding tubes. RISA Inc has been able to source some of these books and they are available to borrow for free from our library (for Australian RISA members).
Author Rhiannon Merritt-Rubadue’s daughter was born with severe Pediatric GERD that led to her being tube fed until the age of three. When she could not find children’s books about kids with feeding tubes, she decided to write some and created MyTubeyBooks.com. She lives near Seattle with her husband and two children. RISA Inc has purchased three of her books for borrowing from the RISA library! The books are A Day In the Life of a Tube Fed Boy, A Day In the Life of a Tube Fed Girl and There’s More Than One Way to Eat!
Author Naomi Autenucci daughter was allergic to EVERYTHING! The second food her daughter ate was potato – she broke out in hives! She writes that she decided to get her daughter tested for allergies and she was diagnosed as allergic to peanuts, almonds, eggs, dairy, wheat, rye and sesame. On her website (http://www.myfirstallergybook.com/history.html) she writes that she searched high and low in bookshops and on the internet to find a book to explain the situation to her daughter and found that the books already published were too complex for her age group, so she wrote the book “Why Am I Different”. A copy of this book is available for borrowing by RISA Inc members!
Author Bethany Tucker is a librarian who has a special interest in picture books. Her book “Jeremy’s Cake” tells the story of Jeremy the Wallaby who is going to a birthday party by himself for the first time and has to be careful to manage his food allergies. Bethany Tucker lives in Sydney and has a daughter who has a severe food allergy, at risk of anaphylaxis from nuts.
The support group AusEE has two books that they have published called Being Henry and Meet Arabella. “Meet Arabella” was written by the AusEE founder and current president Sarah Gray. It tells the story of Arabella who has an endoscopy and is diagnosed with eosinophilic oesophagitis. Their second book “Being Henry” was written by Mercedez Hinchcliff who is the current Vice President. Her son Henry suffers from EoE which is what led her to her involvement with AusEE and drives her dedication to the organisation. Both of these books are available for borrowing from the RISA Inc library.
Written by Bianca Willis
Published May 2013
