Using Literature to Support Children's Mental Health

by Kim Becnel (editor), Robin A. Moeller (editor)

Genres: Nonfiction, Mental Health, Books About Books, Adult, Librarianship

152 pages, Paperback

Published January 10, 2025

Reviews

[Loralee Arbanas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I obviously read this book through an educator lens, but it is truly a great resource for anyone working with children and young adults in any capacity.

Though it offers more information and strategies for adults who work directly with primary and middle-school students, I think both secondary and postsecondary instructors can gain quite a bit from this—text ideas for the classroom, different approaches for teaching said texts about particular mental-health topics/issues, as well as a deeper understanding of the many facets of mental health and how they are impacting our youth.

Grateful that a colleague of mine recommended this one to me!

[Gabrielle Stoller · Rating 4 out of 5]

One thing on my work from home days that I am trying to put into my routine is an hour of a professional development resource. And when I read about this book in my American Libraries magazine, I was pleasantly surprised to see that a library had it available for me to read.

It is a good start point for librarians who are looking to support readers towards mental health resources. Each chapter is on a different topic (ranging from handling death and grief, to OCD representation, to authentic and respectful Islamic and autism representation) and there are great book lists worth sharing.

I had read a considerable number of the books mentioned but there are now several that I just learned about. It is so important that we destigmatize mental health and I appreciate that libraries at least realize that!

[Karen Gedeon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice place for school librarians and teachers to start when looking into the importance of bibliotherapy and which books may be helpful. The book is divided into nine different chapters, each written by a guest author(s) who reviews the topic and makes book suggestions. Topics include anxiety, OCD, death, loss and grief, cancer, Black Girlhood, Muslims, graphic novels, autism and migrants. The included book lists and source notes will benefit all readers.

[Cherie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book for librarians and therapists; this book is divided into sections with book reviews that fit the different topics (OCD and anxiety; autism; etc) - while some of the titles were more dated than others, incredibly helpful, esp for large public libraries and large school libraries.