There's No Such Thing As A Dragon

Author: Jack Kent

Type or emotional/crisis issue(s) addressed: Addressing and facing problems

Year of Publication: 1975 (original), lots of reprints Sept 2009, most recent.

Publisher & Location: Dragonfly Books

ISBN-10: 0375851372

Target Age Level: Age 6 - adult.

# of Pages:

Quality of Illustrations: Good

Brief Summary: A little boy wakes up to find a dragon in his room. He tells his mom who informs him that there is no such thing as a dragon. The dragon continues to grow as it is ignored and eventually becomes as big as the house. Once acknowledged, the dragon shrinks to a manageable size.

Personal Comments/Biases, and/or Things to Consider When Using This Book With Children: It is a kids book originally, but I use it with adolescents. I use it as an introduction to therapy a lot as a introduction for facing and dealing with problems.

Me, myself, and them

Author: Kurt Snyder, Raquel E. Gur and Linda Wasmer Andrews

Issues addressed: Mental health, Schizophrenia

Year published:2007

Publisher: Oxford

ISBN#:0195311221

Age level: High school, to adult

# of pages:192

Illustrations: NA

Brief Summary:
During his second semester at college, Kurt Snyder became convinced that he was about to discover a fabulously important mathematical principle, spending hours lost in daydreams about numbers and symbols. In time, his thoughts took a darker turn, and he became preoccupied with the idea that cars were following him, or that strangers wanted to harm him. Kurt's mind had been hijacked by schizophrenia, a severe mental disorder that typically strikes during the late teen or young adult years.

Opinion: a very adult book, maybe more appropriate for collage age but that's when schizophrenia manifests. It helps to see inside the mind of a schizophrenic.

Activity:

Compare the students symptoms with the authors through writing journals.

The thought that counts

Author: Jared Dougles Kant with Martin Franklin and Linda Wasmer Andrews

Type or emotional/crisis issue(s) addressed: OCD/ anxiety

Year of Publication: 2008

Publisher & Location: Oxford University press: New York

ISBN#: 978-0-19-531689-6

Target Age Level: High school- adult

# of Pages:169

Quality of Illustrations: NA

Brief Summary:

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) affects an estimated 2.2 million Americans, and in this introduction to the illness, written for older teenagers and young adults, Kant provides a personal account of his OCD experience. He relates how even the most mundane activities may be permeated by depression and terror, recalling for instance how changing for gym class in school was fraught with anxiety. Kant shows how patience, perseverance, empathetic parents and friends, and, especially, good treatment-medication and a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy known as Exposure and Response Prevention-helped him flourish as a college student. He is aided, particularly in providing more in-depth clinical information, by Franklin (clinical director, Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety) and freelance health and psychology writer Andrews (co-author, If Your Adolescent Has an Anxiety Disorder). The authors address a host of practical questions, including educating others about OCD, how those experiencing OCD can divert themselves from the disorder (through regular exercise, among other strategies), and adjusting to life in college. In the sometimes jargon-ridden mental health world, it's refreshing to see a book that is so succinct, straightforward, reasonably priced and helpful.

Personal Comments/Biases, and/or Things to Consider When Using This Book With Children:

It is intended for an older audiance. I think it would be great for friends and family of children suffering from OCD as well.

Activitiy:

I might have the child with OCD write a daily diary of their experiances. and then as we read the book we can compair their experiances to the authors.

Chasing the High

Author: Kyle Keegan with Howard B. Moss

Type or emotional/crisis issue(s) addressed: Substance Abuse

Year of Publication:2008

Publisher & Location:ISBN#:978-0-19-531472-4

Target Age Level: high school -adult

# of Pages:170

Quality of Illustrations: NA

Brief Summary:This is an autobiography of a young man who struggled with Drug and alcohol abuse. His story is accompanied by facts and details about drug addiction and recovery.

Personal Comments/Biases, and/or Things to Consider When Using This Book With Children:

Has some language and graphic depictions of drug use, I would not recomend this for young children. This book does however serve as a great resource to those struggleing with addiction and those who want to help addicts.

Activities: The end of the book contains a FAQ section a good activity would be to have children write down what questions they have about their addiction first and then after finishing the book go back to their questions to see if it answered the questions they had and if the FAQ's help the student with any of their struggles.

Eight Stories Up: An Adolescent Chooses Hope Over Suicide

Author: Dequincy A. Lezine and David Brent

Type or emotional/crisis issue(s) addressed: Suicide, depression

Year of Publication: 2008

Publisher & Location: Oxford University Press, New York

ISBN#: 978-0-19-532557-7

Target Age Level: High School, Young Adult

# of Pages: 194

Quality of Illustrations: NA

Brief Summary: This book is a young African American Male's personal experiance with suicidal ideation. It also has the latest information on suicide and it's prevention in young people. It also has tips on overcoming suicidal thoughts and feelings, and saying yes to life. Finally a discussion on how to stay healthy at home and at school.

Personal Comments/Biases, and/or Things to Consider When Using This Book With Children:
This book does have some bad language and maybe a little advanced for younger kids. It's a bit of a long read, but it will help older teens to identify with someone who has similar feelings.

Activities: I would have the teen read a chapter of this book before each session and then talk about what things they can relate to in the author's thinking. Then we will look at ways the book talks about in how to deal with those thoughts and work it in their personal lives.

Beautiful Boy

Author: David Sheff

Type or emotional/crisis issue(s) addressed: Meth, Methamphetamines, Drug Abuse, Substance Abuse

Year of Publication: 2008

Publisher & Location: Houghton Mifflin Co

ISBN#:

• ISBN-10: 0618683356
• ISBN-13: 978-0618683352

Target Age Level: High Scool and Young Adult

# of Pages: 326

Quality of Illustrations: N/A

Brief Summary: Expanding on his New York Times Magazine article, Sheff chronicles his son's downward spiral into addiction and the impact on him and his family. A bright, capable teenager, Nic began trying mind- and mood-altering substances when he was 17. In months, use became abuse, then abuse became addiction. By the time Sheff knew of his son's condition, Nic was strung out on meth, the highly potent stimulant. While his son struggles to get clean, his second wife and two younger children are pulled helplessly into the drama. Sheff, as the parent of an addict, cycles through denial and acceptance and resistance. The author was already a journalist of considerable standing when this painful story began to unfold, and his impulse for detail serves him personally as well as professionally: there are hard, solid facts about meth and the kinds of havoc it wreaks on individuals, families and communities both urban and rural. His journey is long and harrowing, but Sheff does not spare himself or anyone else from keen professional scrutiny any more than he was himself spared the pains—and joys—of watching a loved one struggling with addiction and recovery. Real recovery creates—and can itself be—its own reward; this is an honest, hopeful book, coming at a propitious moment in the meth epidemic.

Personal Comments/Biases, and/or Things to Consider When Using This Book With Children: The book does great at addressing current medical research related to meth addiction and recovery. Great for parents of children with substance abuse (particularly meth) issues.

The Burn Journals

Author: Brent Runyon

Type or emotional/crisis issue(s) addressed: Suicide

Year of Publication: 2004

Publisher & Location: Knopf Books for Young Readers (Hardcover) ; Vintage (Paperback)

ISBN#:

• ISBN-10: 1400096421
• ISBN-13: 978-1400096428

Target Age Level: 14-18

# of Pages: 384

Quality of Illustrations: N/A

Brief Summary: On the sixteenth page of this incisive memoir, eighth-grader Brent Runyon drenches his bathrobe with gasoline and ("Should I do it? Yes.") sets himself on fire. The burns cover 85 percent of his body and require six months of painful skin grafts and equally invasive mental-health rehabilitation. From the beginning, readers are immersed in the mind of 14-year-old Brent as he struggles to heal body and mind, his experiences given devastating immediacy in a first-person, present-tense voice that judders from uncensored teenage attitude and poignant anxiety (he worries about getting hard-ons during physical therapy) to little-boy sweetness. And throughout is anguish over his suicide attempt and its impact on his family: "I have this guilt feeling all over me, like oil on one of those birds in Alaska." Runyon has, perhaps, written the defining book of a new genre, one that gazes as unflinchingly at boys on the emotional edge as Zibby O'Neal's The Language of Goldfish (1980) and Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak (1999) do at girls. Some excruciatingly painful moments notwithstanding, this can and should be read by young adults, as much for its literary merit as for its authentic perspective on what it means to attempt suicide, and, despite the resulting scars, be unable to remember why.

Personal Comments/Biases, and/or Things to Consider When Using This Book With Children: This book is not appropriate for use with all clients. The book can be a little graphic, as it runs through the thoughts of a 14 year old boy. The book is very honest, and is written in small vignettes which can be used independently. The majority of the book deals with the psychological and physical recovery of the kid and ends with his return to regular high school.