Recently I had the privilege to read Counting Thyme, written by Melanie Conklin. It was a wonderful, yet emotional read. A book that I would highly recommend for all ages. 
The characters all had their own personalities and lovable traits, but Val simply stole my heart. It’s a read that made me laugh and cry.
Synopsis:
When eleven-year-old Thyme Owens’ little brother, Val, is accepted into a new cancer drug trial, it’s just the second chance that he needs. But it also means the Owens family has to move to New York, thousands of miles away from Thyme’s best friend and everything she knows and loves. The island of Manhattan doesn’t exactly inspire new beginnings, but Thyme tries to embrace the change for what it is: temporary.
After Val’s treatment shows real promise and Mr. Owens accepts a full-time position in the city, Thyme has to face the frightening possibility that the move to New York is permanent. Thyme loves her brother, and knows the trial could save his life—she’d give anything for him to be well—but she still wants to go home, although the guilt of not wanting to stay is agonizing. She finds herself even more mixed up when her heart feels the tug of new friends, a first crush, and even a crotchety neighbor and his sweet whistling bird. All Thyme can do is count the minutes, the hours, and days, and hope time can bring both a miracle for Val and a way back home.
About the author:
Melanie Conklin is a writer, reader, and all-around lover of words and those who create them. She lives in South Orange, New Jersey, with her husband and two small maniacs. Melanie spent a decade as a product designer and approaches her writing with the same three-dimensional thinking and fastidious attention to detail. Counting Thyme is her debut novel.
Our Thoughts:
Counting Thyme is a wonderful book. It’s so easy to fall in love with the characters and their personalities. I could easily picture the characters as a real family going through life. The life of a little girl (Thyme) that is learning to deal with her brother (Val) having a rare cancer. She has feelings of being left out, feeling lonely and yet feeling the need to be strong for her little brother. Through the eyes of Thyme, we see a family come together as they face overwhelming challenges and uncertainties.
More on Neuroblastoma from the author:
The story of Counting Thyme centers on a family whose youngest child is in the midst of treatment for Neuroblastoma. Neuroblastoma is cancer of the nervous system. According to the non-profit organization Band of Parents, one in 330 kids will develop cancer by age 20.With neuroblastoma, which is most common in children under the age of 2, the numbers are even worse. It has a five-year survival rate of just 30%.
Neuroblastoma is devastating because it often isn’t found until it is Stage IV, and has a high relapse rate. The hope for NB patients is that medicine will continue to develop new therapeutics, like the immunotherapies currently in trial stages. Unfortunately, the funding landscape doesn’t reflect this need. The National Cancer Institute’s funded research portfolio in 2010 was $3 billion. Of that, breast cancer received 21%, prostate cancer received 10% and ALL 12 major groups of pediatric cancers combined received less than 3%.
To put that in perspective, each child in the U.S. diagnosed with cancer received approximately one sixth of the federal research support allocated to eac patient afflicted with AIDS, even though cancer accounts for the greatest number of deaths of children in the U.S. and kills more children per year than cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, asthma and AIDS combined.
Cookies for Kids Cancer is another incredible group that raises funds for NB research. Since 2008, support from Good Cookies like YOU has helped Cookies for Kids’ Cancer fund nearly 6 DOZEN childhood cancer research grants, leading to 11 promising new treatments now in clinical trial, available to children fighting cancer today.
Counting Thyme will be able for purchase on April 12, 2016 with a SRP of $16.99.
