BACOLOD CITY – An award-winning writer of children’s books from Negros Occidental has gone international with her latest book, “My One-Boobed Mamma.”

Jeanette C. Patindol’s book has been published by Living Waters Publishing Co. in the United States for international distribution and is now available for pre-release sale at the company’s website).

The book is about a mother surviving breast cancer. “Breast cancer is a sad fact of life, not only for the adults who suffer through it, but also for their children. In this story, a child learns from her mother not only how to cope with the disease with grace and spirit, but more importantly, what it means to be a real woman. The book is a must-have for any family dealing with breast cancer,” the publishing firm says of Patindol’s book.

The book will soon be available in online bookstores like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, as well as offline ones. It has no Philippine distributor yet.

Awards

“My One-Boobed Mamma” is the third published book of 40-year-old Patindol.
In 2004, she won the Philippine Board on Books for Young People (PBBY) Salanga Prize for Children’s Literature for her “Papa’s House, Mama’s House.”

She won the Salanga Prize again in 2007 for “Tight Times.” The first book is about marital separation while the second is about economic hardship. Both books are published by Adarna House.

Patindol works fulltime as an assistant professor teaching economics, communications and culture courses at the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod City.

She has a Master in Business Administration and a Master of Arts in Conflict and Reconciliation Studies from the same university where she has taught since 1997.

She also does volunteer peace and conflict-sensitive work for Pax Christi Pilipinas and for the Peace and Conflict Journalism Network, and serves as a volunteer storyteller at the Negros Museum.

Asked what inspired her to write “My One-Boobed Mamma,” Patindol said she had a good friend who had cancer and whose husband left her for other women.

“Her 9-year-old daughter told her once that her dad left her because she wasn’t ‘much of a woman’ anymore. That was heartbreaking... It motivated me to try to tell the daughter, through the story, what it means to be a real woman, especially for a woman who has breast cancer,” Patindol said.

The book has been described by those who have read it as “beautiful – touching, realistic but also hopeful; not at all melodramatic, sappy or unrealistically optimistic.”

“It has a sad part and a funny part; just how life is like, with breast cancer or not,” Patindol said. “I wanted to show through the story, not just how breast cancer-stricken families cope, but more so, what it means to be a real woman, in the deepest and highest sense of the word.”

Patindol’s mother was also diagnosed with stage four breast cancer in January 2000 and her sister with stage two breast cancer in August 2003.

“It was scary, sad, frustrating ... standing by feeling helpless with only your love and presence to offer. It inspired me to read up more on the subject, though, and equip myself with pertinent information,” she said.

Her father, Teofilo Ong Patindol, and her mother, Lourdes Concepcion Patindol Watts, were business people. Her father died on Feb. 20 in Bacolod City and her mother on March 10 in Georgia.

Patindol said her parents separated when her mother left for the US in 1988.

Books

As a child, her mother surrounded her and her siblings with a lot of books and coloring and drawing materials. This kept them quiet and in one place, considering that they lived on the mezzanine floor of their store at the Libertad market in Bacolod then, Patindol said.

Patindol said the stories she read when she was a little girl and her vivid imagination probably influenced her to become a storyteller.

“Cooped up in the mezzanine floor of our store for most of the time, there wasn’t much room or time for the usual games and ‘pasyal’ (promenading) that other children had. Our father didn’t believe in spending for those things; only for food and books. So we had to invent our own toys and games. Invent our own make-believe worlds, even,” she said.

When writing her books, Patindol said she tries to put herself in the child’s place, and assume a child’s perspective.