• Age: 14 to 18
• Grade: 9 to 12

Final-year university students Jonah and Ellen face life-threatening illness together—and discover love. As their love deepens, they embrace intimacy and creativity, courage and honesty, joy and pride.

A compelling reminder that—along the songlines of the cancer journey—when the patient is held at the centrepoint of care, and when professional and personal caregivers work as partners with profound skill and compassion, a beautiful story unfolds. Songlines is that story.

This is emeritus professor of pediatric oncology and palliative care John Graham-Pole’s third novel in his trilogy inspired by young people with cancer. It evokes an abundance of compassion, know-how, humour, and hope.

John Graham-Poe's profile page

Gillian McCulloch's profile page

Barbara Heatley-O'Neill's profile page

John Graham-Pole is a retired professor of pediatrics. He has been a

clinician, teacher and pioneer researcher in the field of childhood cancer

for forty years. Educated in the United Kingdom, he co-founded the Center

for Arts in Medicine (www.arts.ufl.edu) at the University of Florida, now

among the world’s leading arts-and-health organizations.

He is the author of many works of non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. He

lives in Nova Scotia with his wife, Dorothy Lander, where they co-founded

HARP The People’s Press (www.harppublishing.ca), which is dedicated

to producing print and online publications on art and health for a diverse

readership. Songlines is the third of a trilogy of novels inspired by children

and young adults with cancer.

John’s personal website is www.johngrahampole.com, and he shares

the HARP website with his wife and co-publisher. He can also be found on

Facebook, Instagram, and Linked In.

Songlines is a beautiful love story about a young couple grappling with fatal brain cancer. Written

from the perspective of a student who is considering going to medical school and how living life on

the other side of the stethoscope changed her perspective on care giving. This is a story of

bravery and heart. Dr. John Graham-Pole channels his decades of experience working with young

people with cancer to spin a truly lovely tale about living life with meaning, and what it means to

love and care for someone at the time of their greatest need.

William Slayton, MD, Professor and Chief, Pediatric Hematology-Oncology, University of Florida