Alex Cooper, 14, wrote her book about a family friend’s fight with cancer.

Book helps kids deal with cancer
By: MANASEE WAGH
Source: Bucks County Courier Times

Alex Cooper, 14, wrote her book about a family friend’s fight with cancer.

When cancer strikes your loved one, how do you stay strong?

How do you explain it to your kids?

At age 9, Alex Cooper of Lower Makefield learned that her mom’s best friend, Mary King, was diagnosed with breast cancer.

With five children to care for, the Kings ended up relying on the Coopers a great deal. The two families had been close before, but through the next year of chemotherapy, tears and hope, they ended up bonding even more tightly. Alex learned how friendship can help someone pull through a crisis.

So when her fourth-grade teacher asked the class what story the students would tell if they were going to write a book, the fight with cancer wasn’t far from Alex’s mind.

“I just traced back to when I found out about Mrs. King and thought about the crucial points that really affected my family and the King family,” said Alex, who is now 14 and attends eighth grade at St. Andrew School in Newtown Township.

In the story for children, she talked about how Mary King lost her hair because of chemotherapy, and how the King children slept over at her house many times so their father could spend time with his wife in the hospital.

“Even though it sometimes cut into our schedule we did it because we knew it would help a lot,” Alex wrote in the story.

King’s youngest child, Buddy, was 4 at the time. When Alex read him the book later, it helped him comprehend that his mother was sick and needed time to recover, said Alex.

Still, with the assignment over, the book lay on Alex’s coffee table at home for two years.

It was her grandmother, a breast cancer survivor herself, who insisted that the story would help other children whose lives had been touched by cancer. She showed it to a Chrysa Smith, a Newtown children’s book author, who loved the idea of publishing Alex’s writings.

It took nearly two years, but “Fighting Cancer Together” was finally published, selling 50 copies in less than a week. A silent sponsor paid for the copyright, the ISBN number and the initial printing costs, said Laurie Cooper, Alex’s mother.

Alex worked with The Keeney Printing Group in Lansdale on several revisions of her 12 pages of text and matching illustrations. She had to do certain drawings over and over and design a cover illustration, she said. At one point, a publisher who got involved wanted to put a picture on the cover that she found too depressing, so Alex pushed for another idea instead. Fortunately, not much of the original text and design was altered.
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“It’s a long and grueling experience, but it’s worth it at the end,” Alex said. She dedicated the book to her mother because she set a stellar example of supporting someone with cancer wholeheartedly. In the book, Alex also thanked the teacher who set the assignment when Alex was 10, and her grandmother, who believed in her.

Alex launched her book at a booth at the Flyers’ Wives Fight for Lives Carnival Sunday. People kept approaching her at the Wachovia Center event to ask her about the book. Some were surprised to discover that Alex had written it herself, said her mother.

Now area schools are inviting Alex to present her book to students.

The Pen Ryn School in Falls asked Alex to read from her book and talk about the publishing process Tuesday. Fifth-graders she spoke with did a similar book-writing exercise a year ago. Many students raised their hands with questions about Alex’s experience and the publishing process. Several knew someone with cancer.

Justin Thompson of Newtown knows Buddy King and said he liked the picture of the woman in the pink, paisley-patterned bandanna smiling from the book’s cover.

“It was interesting how she came up with the topic and wrote about it,” said Justin, 11.

Alex also spoke to fourth-graders and held a discussion with a group of eighth-graders who were curious about publishing.

Next, she’s going to talk to students at her own school and at St. Ignatius Catholic School in Lower Makefield.

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation has endorsed the book. Part of the proceeds from the book sales will be donated to the foundation. A health care publisher also has expressed interested in it, said Alex’s mother. Alex wants to distribute copies anywhere they can reach children who know someone with cancer, including hospitals, schools and churches.

Though Mary King’s cancer is now in remission, Alex recalled how difficult it was to cope with that first intense year of treatment.

“I wished my parents had this book to show me when I was going through this experience,” she said.

want to know more?

To buy Alex Cooper’s book, “Fighting Cancer Together,” e-mail her at fightingcancertogether@comcast.net.

To learn more about the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and how it can help people who have been touched by cancer, go to www.komen.org.