A harrowing yet ultimately hopeful look at the manifestation of mental illness.
An Irish boy navigates coming of age while living with OCD in this graphic memoir.
At 10, Pan realized he was different from his friends. While they obsessed over Pokémon cards, Pan, who has light skin and a mop of tousled brown hair, found that he battled intrusive thoughts that kept him awake well into the night. He calls these thoughts “the Puzzle.” His efforts to find solutions included repetitive prayers, compulsive counting, and an eventual descent into disordered eating, all while navigating his school career. Pan attends a Catholic school and questions whether he’s possessed by the devil, if God is speaking to him, or if he’s just plain “crazy.” When his symptoms turn physical, he seeks help from myriad specialists. The doctors find nothing physically wrong with him, so he takes to the internet for assistance and stumbles upon his eventual diagnosis of OCD. The cheery colors in many of the panels serve as a stark contrast to the dark thoughts in Pan’s head, while the blue-gray panels illustrating Pan’s thought spirals emphasize his distress. Pan’s striking story handles mental health with care and precision, dispelling myths about OCD and providing readers with the language necessary to discuss its signs and symptoms. Readers will also appreciate the quick yet comprehensive overview of cognitive behavioral therapy treatment toward the end.
A harrowing yet ultimately hopeful look at the manifestation of mental illness. (content warning) (Graphic memoir. 10-14)Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780593615614
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Rocky Pond Books/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
A tragic, gripping, and inspiring story.
In 1979, 11-year-old Norman was the only survivor of a plane crash in Southern California: This is his true story.
This book for middle-grade readers, co-authored with Kiely, covers much of the same material as Ollestad’s 2009 memoir for adults, Crazy for the Storm. Flying in a four-seater Cessna with his father, his father’s girlfriend, Sandra, and the pilot, Norman was excited to reach Big Bear to receive his ski-racing trophy. (As a vivid example of his busy childhood, they’d driven the 300 miles there yesterday for Norman to compete—and then driven back to Topanga Canyon in the evening for his hockey game.) But the plane tragically crashed on a mountain in a blizzard. Nothing is sugarcoated; readers encounter graphic descriptions of the pilot and Norman’s dad, who died, and Sandra, who suffered a gaping head wound. Eventually accepting that he had to figure things out on his own, Norman drew upon the extreme training his father had put his “Boy Wonder” through—training that had bullied Norman into facing difficult physical and mental challenges that he feared and resented. During his trek to safety, Norman performed incredible mental and physical feats and encouraged the barely functioning Sandra—until she fell to her death. Norman’s conflicted feelings about the father he’d both idolized and resented are nuanced and satisfyingly resolved. Readers who enjoy nail-biting wilderness stories will be riveted.
A tragic, gripping, and inspiring story. (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780374392611
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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