Cornflakes and Candlelight

Not a subject normally at the centre of a novel, but every bit as compelling as ‘The Angel Within.’

Liberally peppered with humour, it is real life in a way we don’t expect to find within the covers of a book. ‘Cornflakes and Candlelight’ is a reluctant condemnation of a system in crisis and the shifting sands of politics; a poignant description of the turmoil that tears at anyone who cares for a son or daughter who is handicapped or disabled.

This must surely be required reading for any aspiring social worker, or indeed those who have risen to the top of the profession and have remained on the bureaucratic side of the fence, unaware of, or forced to ignore, the soul-searching hidden in the dusty depths of their filing system.

Janet Wade’s earlier book, The Angel Within, was a remarkable account of a young couple’s struggle to accept that their first child had Down’s Syndrome. In it she captured the frightening, loving, often lonely experience of living between the real, and a Peter Pan world. Often funny, deeply moving, it was an immensely readable book, to which Cornflakes and Candlelight is the perfect sequel.