Living with Illness: Ben and Izzy’s Story – Living with Anaphylaxis

This powerful and eye opening picture book uses the first-person testimony from two children, Ben and Izzy, who both suffer with anaphylactic allergies. Izzy describes what anaphylaxis is and what it does to your body. Together they describe the different ways it influences their daily lives.

Using the children’s real first-person testimonies creates an intimate and direct tone that help us to empathise with the people’s differences. Both circumstances are easily relatable to children; they talk about school, family, friends, holidays and birthday parties.

The BAFTA award-winning stories were originally produced as animations for the BBC. Aimed at children aged 9 and up, these powerful and evocative stories have now been captured in book form as rich, visual testimonies of the impact an illness has on a child’s daily life and how they cope and are able to enjoy the life that they have.