How large is your desk space? How many of us have placed a dozen new shiny books on our desk just hoping that the information will seep by osmosis into our brains while we snooze and drool over our revision? The MRCPCH examination is a beast that must be grabbed by both horns and beaten into submission by a multitude of weapons consisting of paediatric texts, anatomy and embryology, physiology and biology, not to mention the latest review articles and key paediatric papers. How else to win the battle but to buy a small (expensive) library of textbooks?

This new textbook, the publishers claim, will provide “all the information that the senior house officer and specialist registrar in paediatrics will need during …