Practical, challenging, informative—positively worthwhile.
This workbook for teens suffering from anxiety offers lessons, examples, and exercises.
Ten chapters instruct readers in rewiring their brains in various ways to reduce or eliminate the limitations imposed by symptoms of anxiety on daily life. The chapters address self-denigrating thoughts, staying in the present moment, coping with emotional pain, developing resilience, recognizing negative biases, handling intense emotions, moving past procrastination and avoidance, developing confidence, and consolidating gains over the long term. Readers are encouraged to keep a training journal as they work through the book, and free worksheets available for download online are referenced as well. An explanation of basic brain hardware and functions forms the introductory lesson, and the first exercise asks readers to imagine who they might be without anxiety in order to motivate them to do the work required of them in the training program. Chapters begin with a scenario in which two teens face the same situation and react differently—one with anxiety, one without. After an analysis of the real effects of the anxious symptoms, related exercises aim to decrease the power of these behaviors. The scenarios are realistic and relatable, and the analyses are logical and clear. The exercises are straightforward, though some require determination to implement, as when readers are asked to conjure physical symptoms intentionally. Readers will learn how symptoms of anxiety stem from useful bodily responses gone awry as well as many useful thoughts and actions to interrupt their anxiety.
Practical, challenging, informative—positively worthwhile. (references) (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: April 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68403-376-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Instant Help Books
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
This is clearly not unbiased reporting, but it makes a strong case that justice in our legal system does not always fit the...
Porinchak recounts how the legal system fails five teens who commit a serious crime.
The May 22, 1995, brawl in a white suburb of Los Angeles that resulted in the death of one teen and the injury of another is related matter-of-factly. The account of the police investigation, the judicial process, and the ultimate incarceration of the five boys is more passionately argued. Since the story focuses on the teens’ experiences following the brawl, minimal attention is given to Jimmy Farris, who died, although the testimony of Mike McLoren, who survived, is crucial. The book opens with a comprehensive dramatis personae that will help orient readers, and the text is liberally punctuated by quotes drawn from contemporary newspaper and magazine coverage as well as interviews with several of the key figures, including three of the accused. Porinchak argues that the proceedings were influenced by the high-profile 1994 trial and acquittal of the Menendez brothers, and unfounded accusations of gang involvement further clouded the matter. Despite the journalistic style, there is clear intent to elicit sympathy for the five boys involved, three of whom were sentenced to life without parole; of two, the text remarks that “they were numbers now, not humans.”
This is clearly not unbiased reporting, but it makes a strong case that justice in our legal system does not always fit the crime. (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8132-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
Native American voices spanning a hundred years present a collective sense of childhood and a scope of individual experience. Similar in format to Philip’s Earth Always Endures: Native American Poems (1996) and In a Sacred Manner I Live: Native American Wisdom (1997), this collection speaks more closely to a young audience in its subject matter. From the words of Charles A. Eastman and Sarah Winnemuca to the more contemporary voices of Louis Two Ravens Irwin and James Sewid, the narratives describe aspects of childhood life in many tribes. Subjects range from playing house and playing war to having hair cut at a boarding school and being buried alive in order to hide from white men. Like the previous collections, this is illustrated with archival photographs, printed in duotone, that are evocative, but overly romantic in tone. The fact that the experiences were recorded, in word or picture, almost entirely in the late-19th and early-20th centuries gives an overall sense of distance and of “The-Indian-of-the-Past” to this collection, although readers may find the narratives themselves immediate. Philip gives both English and actual names of people and tribes after each selection, as well as sources for all pictures and texts at the end of the volume. A bibliography of further reading and indexes of speakers, writers, and Indian nations enhance the collection. Wonderful words in a museum-quality package, readers may find their way slowly to this book, but they should find the trip worthwhile. (introduction, indexes, further reading, source notes) (Nonfiction. 10+)
Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2000
ISBN: 0-395-64528-X
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
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