The Cleveland Clinic describes it as “[the] experience of having a sibling with special needs”. This isn’t a medical condition, but rather a “way of describing a family dynamic”. Children growing up with a sibling with special needs can feel transparent, as if made of glass. Characteristics may include:

• Perfectionism

• Rapid maturity beyond years

• People-Pleasing

• Difficulty setting healthy boundaries

• Difficultly asking for help

• Susceptibility to mental health problems

Learn more here

This book started as just a doodle during class. At the time, my sister had been in and out of the ICU for roughly a year. I was reflecting on my life growing up alongside Kara, considering all the memories that made me different.

Each day was a struggle to maintain a good attitude on the outside while I carried such a weight on the inside. It was then that I first heard the term “Glass Child Syndrome” and realized that it applied to me.

This book is the result of that phase of my life.

While this book is heavily metaphorical, it’s comprised of individual events that genuinely happened to me in elementary school. It’s a representation of how I interpreted the medical world I was surrounded with through a child’s perspective.

Penelope the Panda wonders what makes her family so peculiar. As she fails to solve everything herself, she learns that it’s her sister, Mia, who’s peculiar!

The first time I met someone with siblings like me wasn’t until college. The most formative years of my life passed without having another person to relate to!

My hope is that by sharing the way I interpreted life alongside a high-needs sibling, other children may be kept from feeling alone in similar circumstances.

Lord willing, the English version will be published in May of 2025! Spanish and Japanese versions soon to follow…