Congratulations!!!
you have ADHD
What if having ADHD were something to celebrate?
Babs is a perfectly “ordinary” nine-year-old. She also has ADHD, which makes her just a little different from everybody else. Funny, fast, and with a laugh and a tear, she tells her own story — straight out of her own head.
Paperback (6×9) and Kindle edition · Ages 8–12, and every grown-up who lives with one
Babs!
“I think faster than light. I think more than light.”
I'm Babs. I'm a girl, nine years, 111 days, and a couple of hours young. 111 days, that's 111/365ths of a year. Huh, can I actually work that out in my head? Then of course I'd need a calculator to check it. But where did I put that thing again…?
I think faster than light. I think more than light. What…? Inside my head it's bright just from all the thinking! Yeah, that's a good one. Inside my head a lamp could burn twenty-four hours a day on all the energy my thinking gives off. Ha! Forget energy-saving bulbs, hook me up to the power grid and I'll light up the whole city.
From chapter 1 · Just Me… Babs!
The long road to a diagnosis — and the even longer road to being understood.
Babs's year is one so many kids and parents know all too well. Told with plenty of stumbles, it ends somewhere most books about ADHD never get to: with a congratulation.
Too much?
Babs is black or white, awake or asleep, laughing or mad. Gray doesn't exist. Her family loves her and is tired; her teacher, Ms. Dunn (Ms. Dunce, in Babs's head), is done. So is Babs.
The search
Evaluations, waiting rooms, a whiteboard full of arrows, and a new teacher, Mr. Joe, who does something nobody has done before: he really looks, and really listens.
“Congratulations, you have ADHD!”
A diagnosis, a Rainbow Foundation, a best friend moving away, pills, a presentation in front of the whole class — and a girl who discovers that ADHD can be a strength. Her strength.
One book, three readers.
Kids who are “a bit much”
Short chapters, big feelings, and a heroine who blurts, climbs trees, and forgets her phone in the bike shed. Babs sounds like a kid because she is one. Reads aloud beautifully at bedtime.
Parents on the road to a diagnosis
The book puts you inside your child's head for a few hours — the roller-coaster thoughts, the black-and-white, the guilt after the door slams. Understanding first; the rest follows.
Teachers, therapists & psychiatrists
Written by an elementary school teacher with ADHD herself, with a foreword by a child psychiatrist who hands it to the kids in her office. A book to keep on the classroom shelf.
Voices from inside and outside the book.
“So incredibly well written that by the first few chapters I was halfway convinced I'd come down with ADHD myself, like I was seeing the world straight through the brain of someone who has it.”
Emily Chatrouchild and adolescent psychiatrist, from the foreword“I'm thrilled that from now on I can say to the kids in my office, too: ‘Congratulations, you have ADHD!’, as I hand them Petra's book to read. So that they'll be proud, or proud again, of themselves, ADHD and all!”
Emily Chatrouchild and adolescent psychiatrist, from the foreword“Mom, I just wanted to keep reading…”
Petra's son, who has ADHDafter test-reading the first three chapters — from A Word of Thanks“My little guy said he liked my book even better than his favorite book. And my girl lay next to me giggling and recognized so many things from our own family.”
Petra van der Burg-Jansenon reading the book to her two youngest at bedtime“I'm not crazy. I'm not a baby. I'm just me. I'm just Babs, aren't I?”
Babsnine years, 111 days, and a couple of hours young — chapter 1“Stay the sweet, spontaneous, impulsive blurter I've gotten to know, stay pure Babs. I'm going to miss you, and know this: ADHD is a strength, your strength!”
Mr. Joefrom his goodbye letter to Babs — final chapterDrawn the way Babs thinks.
Twenty-one pen-and-ink illustrations by Roel van Gestel run through the book — captured, in Petra's words, “exactly as I had them in my head.”
Petra van der Burg-Jansen
Petra is a mother of four and an elementary school teacher. She was diagnosed with ADHD herself at the age of thirty-five. With this book she wants to show the other, fun side of ADHD: the side that so often goes unnoticed.
In everyday life she talks openly about her ADHD and her medication, and that openness brings understanding and recognition. She writes the way she thinks — so for a little while, the reader gets to live inside the mind of someone with ADHD.
Congratulations, You Have ADHD! was first published in the Netherlands in 2012 as Gefeliciteerd, je hebt ADHD! and reprinted in 2021. This English edition, 2026, is the first time Babs speaks English.
- Illustrations
- Roel van Gestel
- Cover painting
- Denise Kennedy van Dam
- Cover design
- Denise Kennedy van Dam & Roel van Gestel
- Foreword
- Emily Chatrou, MD, child and adolescent psychiatrist
- Translation review
- Gareth Stubbs
ADHD is a strength. Sometimes plus and sometimes minus, but the answer always comes out good.
Get the book, hand it to a kid, a parent, a teacher — and say the words with Mr. Joe.