Best for libraries updating resources on an issue that (alas!) isn’t going away anytime soon.
An abbreviated but data-packed overview of a burgeoning health crisis.
The numbers are appalling—over 47,000 suicides in the U.S. in 2017—and it’s growing worse. Through both statistics and anecdotes, this slim volume hammers home the dramatic rise in U.S. suicide rates across all demographic groups, regions, ages, and occupations. The causes are multifarious and not well understood: They range from immediate contributors like easy access to means; proximate factors such as bullying and mental illness; and broader cultural trends, including increasing economic anxiety and social isolation. An entire chapter zeroes in on teen suicides; another examines the often overlooked impacts (sometimes life-threatening) on the bereaved. The work concludes with a brief discussion of prevention and postvention, with heavy emphasis on diagnostic rubrics. The writing style is dry and data intensive, aimed more at report writers than at those seeking emotional help or closure. Still, the inclusion of affecting personal stories and tangential boxed inserts does help break the numbing effect of the constant barrage of dire statistics. All examples and citations are recent, most from the last two years. The phrase “commit suicide” or variations are used multiple times. Color photographs show individuals of various ages and ethnicities.
Best for libraries updating resources on an issue that (alas!) isn’t going away anytime soon. (source notes, appendices, resources, index, picture credits) (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68282-741-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: ReferencePoint Press
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
In either iteration, a provocative counter to conventional, blinkered views of our national story.
A classic framing of this country’s history from a multicultural perspective, clumsily cut and recast into more simplified language for young readers.
Veering away from the standard “Master Narrative” to tell “the story of a nation peopled by the world,” the violence- and injustice-laden account focuses on minorities, from African- Americans (“the central minority throughout our country’s history”), Mexicans and Native Americans to Japanese, Vietnamese, Sikh, Russian Jewish and Muslim immigrants. Stefoff reduces Takaki’s scholarly but fluid narrative (1993, revised 2008) to choppy sentences and sound-bite quotes. She also adds debatable generalizations, such as a sweeping claim that Native Americans “lived outside of white society’s borders,” and an incorrect one that the Emancipation Proclamation “freed the slaves.” Readers may take a stronger interest in their own cultural heritage from this broad picture of the United States as, historically, a tapestry of ethnic identities that are “separate but also shared”—but being more readable and, by page count at least, only about a third longer, the original version won’t be out of reach of much of the intended audience, despite its denser prose.
In either iteration, a provocative counter to conventional, blinkered views of our national story. (endnotes, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60980-416-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Seven Stories
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Unhappy teens in need of a lecture on thinking positively and being more in touch with one’s emotions need look no further.
Mangan presents in as many chapters a 20-point strategy that ranges from “Have a Positive Attitude” and “Cut Your Problems Into Pieces” to “Practice Being Patient” and “Appreciate the Value of Your Hard Work.” She blends private exercises like visualizing forgiveness with comments on selective attention, “problematic procrastination” and other bad habits, reframing situations to put them in different lights, “changing shoes” to understand others better and subjecting feelings to rational analysis. Though the author has a graduate degree and years of practice in clinical psychology, she offers generalities and generic situations rather than specific cases from her experience, and the book is devoid of references to further resources or even an index. Superficial advice (“If you are unsafe or are around kids that you know are bullies, just walk away”) combines with techniques that are unlikely to interest readers (“Make a song verse out of your list of helpful thoughts”). The author also makes questionable claims about the mind-body connection (“When you smile, your body sends a signal to your brain that you are happy”) and fails to make a case for regarding side forays into food habits and environmental concerns as relevant to her topic. Obvious issues and common-sense advice, unpersuasively presented. (Self-help. 12-15)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4338-1040-4
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
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