Victorian mum Tracey Newnham has drawn on the support of UNSW clinical psychologist Brittany McGill to create a book that empowers children to cope with the loss of a parent to cancer. 

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A book to help children grieving the loss of a parent to cancer has been developed by an author and artist with first-hand experience, with the support of a clinical psychologist at the UNSW School of Women's and Children's Health.

Author-illustrator Tracey Newnham realised the need for In The Rainbow while she and her two young sons were grieving for her partner Wes Crooke, who had a recurrent brain cancer (anaplastic astrocytoma) and died in 2014, aged 37.

In hospital, shortly before he passed away, Newnham asked her partner to make his presence felt to the family in the form of rainbows.

Sure enough, in the months after the funeral she and their sons, then aged two and three, began to find rainbows appearing in the house where they had never noticed them before.

After advice from a counsellor, Newnham encouraged the boys to draw rainbows when they were feeling the emotions of grief – if they were sad at day care, or if they were overwhelmed with anger.

The book is about this experience and is intended to be read with an adult carer, counsellor or teacher supporting the child and allowing them to interpret the meanings. The book will remind children they are entitled to feel sad, but that they are also entitled to feel joy without feelings of guilt.