Raeburn says he began Acquainted with the Night thinking it would be a science writer's account of mental illness in children. He begins the story with a prologue relating his own experiences with his children, one of whom has bipolar disorder and one of whom has depression. When he finished the prologue, he says, "I felt I had more to say about the personal story before I moved to the journalism." Eventually, he discovered he could not let go of the personal story — it took over the book. Among the many issues raised in the book are the ways in which schools, psychiatrists, therapists, hospitals, the insurance industry, and the research establishment are failing our mentally ill children.