Book excerpt: Prescribing for children is problematic. Children are not small adults in terms of their physiology, and they cannot be subjects in clinical trials. This makes prescribing for them something of an art and a daunting one at that for trainees. Will Carroll (co-editor of the Illustrated Textbook of Paediatrics amongst other titles for paediatrics trainees) with a team of fellow paediatricians and a hospital pharmacist have sought to demystify prescribing for children. The team has identified what from their experience are the most common drugs prescribed to children and have addressed each one, adding detail about how each medicine works. Each chapter follows the ABCDE structure covering Absorption, Biological effects, Clearance, Dosing and side Effects in children. This book is a succinct, portable reference, modelled closely on Hitchings et al.: The Top 100 Drugs. Written in conjunction with a hospital pharmacist for drug expertise. User-friendly double-page-spread approach. Each drug entry preceded by clinical pharmacology information with consistent headings: Why and when; Absorption; Biology. Each drug presented in consistent categories: Clearance; Dosing; Administration; Side effects and interactions; Monitoring and Cost.