Up in the Sky So Blue, a Book for Children and Teens About Alzheimer’s

When I was a young girl, sitting on a swing, I imagined I could vanish into another world if I swung high enough. During the pandemic, I wanted to escape to another world, so I drafted one chapter about a young girl who landed in a magical place called Aurora. The writer inside me pondered, Why did she want to escape?

Some memory surfaced inside me about my own grandmother who developed Alzheimer’s when I was in high school. I recalled how difficult it was for my mother when she had to put her own mother into a nursing home. Now in my mid-sixties, I’ve watched several of my friends struggle to cope with the same issue. This role reversal is unfathomable and impossible to navigate for most anyone.

Knowing how painful this was for my mother, what if a child had to deal with an elderly parent or grandparent who was experiencing memory loss? Who would help? If she had no other family, would a stranger come to her rescue?