When Dr Bonita Stanton, former chair of the department of Pediatrics and current vice dean for Research at Wayne State University asked me to be the guest editor for this issue on childhood cancer for Pediatric Oncology Clinics of North America , I accepted this with some trepidation and with much appreciation. Rarely one gets an opportunity to present a story in which a person was so intimately involved over 5 decades. I am very much indebted to all the authors for their contributions to this monograph and painting the picture of the progress in curing childhood cancer so eloquently. I also acknowledge the help from Elsevier editorial staff in putting this issue together.