Sixteen-year-old Hazel, a stage IV thyroid cancer patient, has accepted her terminal diagnosis until a chance meeting with a boy at cancer support group forces her to reexamine her perspective on love, loss, and life.

Provides a broad overview of cancer that describes its history, development, and study. Profiles notable scientists in the field, explains terms and treatments, and explores the latest research. Features statistics, a glossary, and further reading.

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer and viruses; helped lead to in vitro...

In ten years, Jessie will be twenty-seven-but her sister Helen will always be eighteen. Jessie's not ready to move on. Everyone says she's doing great, but she is drowning in grief and hiding it with her characteristic wisecracks. Why tell anyone? It's not like it will bring Helen back. Jessie can see that her whole family is barely treading water: Her brother Lucas has completely shut down, and her parents are just going through the motions of life....

A young man's treatment for cancer inspires profound changes in his family. Paul Bannerman, an ecologist in South Africa, believes he understands the trajectory of his life, with the usual markers of vocation and marriage. But when he's diagnosed with thyroid cancer and, after surgery, prescribed treatment that will leave him radioactive, for a period a danger to others, he begins to question, as Auden wrote, "what Authority gives / existence its...

"Ross Maloy just wants to be a normal seventh grader. He doesn't want to lose his hair, or wear a weird hat, or deal with the disappearing friends who don't know what to say to 'the cancer kid.' But with his recent diagnosis of a rare eye cancer, blending in is off the table. Based on the author's real life experience" --