An excellent mental health resource for adolescents and those who support them.
This second volume in the Kid Confident series is a guide to the intense emotions many middle schoolers experience.
Designed for young people to explore independently in bite-sized chunks, the book contains graphics, comics, sidebars, and prompts to vary its format and sustain reader interest. The first half details why mood struggles are more intense in middle school, empowering tweens and teens by letting them know they are not alone. Next, the author explores the impacts of thoughts, mindset, perfectionism, and actions on mood and includes concrete suggestions on how to feel better. The book features intriguing facts, self-reflection activities and questions related to key concepts, strategies for self-regulation, writing exercises, and chapter summaries as well as anecdotes about diverse middle schoolers who worked through the struggles illustrated. Simple illustrations and diagrams support the text, making subjects like the structure of the limbic system or yoga poses that calm or energize more accessible. Importantly, the final chapter helps readers understand when and how to ask for professional help for themselves and their friends. Packed with valuable material, this volume is an informative read for middle schoolers who struggle with their emotions.
An excellent mental health resource for adolescents and those who support them. (resources, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4338-3818-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
A slippery jumble but not without plenty of thrills.
A scramble into the wild world of rock climbing.
In 2017 free solo climber Alex “The Hon” Honnold climbed Freerider, a route with a ridiculously high hazard rating, without a safety line past fantastically tricky sections with deceptively mild names like the Boulder Problem, 3,000 feet up Yosemite’s slick El Capitan in just under four hours. Readers who stay the course will not only come away with a command of climbing jargon and glimpses of the community of free-range souls who speak it, but will experience a penetrating character study of a full-time rock climber who spends his days going from one challenge to another in locales ranging from Borneo to Chad. Slimming down her author husband’s more detailed account—adding a personal introduction, toning down the language—the adapter tries to position Honnold and his colleagues less as thrill-seekers than athletes pushing human limits. What remains is a patchwork, composed as much of the author’s autobiographical reminiscences about his own early attachment to dangerous feats as anecdotes about Honnold. Young readers may find speculations about whether Honnold has Asperger’s and/or an atypical amygdala more eye-glazing than illuminating. Considering his risky lifestyle, the Hon makes chancy role model material, but his seemingly paradoxical mix of impulsivity and obsessive attention to physical and mental preparation adds nuance and drama to his exploits.
A slippery jumble but not without plenty of thrills. (glossary, sources, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-20392-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
An engaging memoir of one boy’s experience of growing up with ADHD with a risky message around medication cessation.
Page explores his childhood experiences with ADHD in this graphic memoir.
Young towheaded Tyler’s diagnosis of ADHD results in a prescription for Ritalin to help him behave, though it certainly doesn’t fix a dysfunctional family life marked by his father’s uncontrolled rage. In the 1980s and ’90s, when ADHD was poorly understood, recognition of Tyler’s neurodiversity is delayed because his schoolwork—when he completes it—is good. He struggles to keep friends and handle his anger, but the medication aids with focus. Despite his learning that Ritalin’s more likely to be associated with weight loss, Tyler blames his pubescent weight gain on both the drug and ADHD–fueled disordered eating, so the summer after 10th grade he stops taking it. Despite a two-sentence parenthetical that suddenly stopping Ritalin without consulting a doctor was unwise, adult-narrator Page clearly associates life changes he considers positive (growing taller, losing weight, becoming more social) with his self-prescribed medication change. The narrator describes the adult ADHD that will plague future Tyler, but the memoir closes with his happily leaving home after successfully graduating high school. Readers who pay more attention to Tyler’s story than to the interspersed scientific information and narrator’s asides will likely feel that self-treatment was the correct choice. Expressive cartoon-style art in bright, saturated colors and clear speech bubbles make this a visually enticing work.
An engaging memoir of one boy’s experience of growing up with ADHD with a risky message around medication cessation. (author's note, photographs, art notes) (Graphic memoir. 11-14)Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-75834-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
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