Ollie Tibbles

August 27, 2012
Ollie Tibbles declared that one day he would become a train, and that's exactly what happened. After the seven year old succumbed to cancer, the Make-a-Wish Foundation arranged for a train in the commuter division of Illinois' Regional Transportation Authority to be named in honor of the young boy. Here, the "cheeky monkey"'s mother details Ollie's winning spirit, his devastating diagnosis at age five, and the grueling rounds of treatment that would ultimately prove ineffectual against the cancer in his spine and brain. In addition to recounting Ollie's struggles, Tibbles reflects candidly on numerous topics, including illness, parenting, marriage, and sexuality. She admits that the book began as a way for her to cope with the loss of Ollie and remember her son's short life, and she chronicles the flood of empathetic responses she received after posting her grief-laden missives online. As such, this is indeed a heart-wrenching story, but Tibbles's narrative is chatty, unpolished, and riddled with grammatically dubious statements (e.g., "I remember as a child my first crush."). If readers can ignore the prose, Ollie's resilient spirit and his family's emotional journey are certainly inspiring.