Bookology Magazine

Mental Health: Character Mental Health: Middle Grade

Ann Jacobus and Nan­cy Bo Flood, authors and edu­ca­tors, devel­oped this list of pic­ture books with men­tal health as a focus. They are main­tain­ing it, so if you have sug­ges­tions, please let us know in the com­ments. Ann and Nan­cy are avail­able for work­shops on this impor­tant top­ic for librar­i­ans, edu­ca­tors, and men­tal health orga­ni­za­tions. Ann Jacobus. Nan­cy Bo Flood.

More Books about Men­tal Health: Fam­i­ly Men­tal Health Mid­dle Grade • Grief •   LGBTQ Mid­dle Grade • Non­fic­tion • Pic­ture Books

NOVELS

Counting by 7s

Count­ing by Sev­ens
writ­ten by Hol­ly Gold­berg Sloan
Roar­ing Brook Press, 2017
(pre­sumed autism) 

Wil­low Chance is a twelve-year-old genius, obsessed with nature and diag­nos­ing med­ical con­di­tions, who finds it com­fort­ing to count by 7s. It has nev­er been easy for her to con­nect with any­one oth­er than her adop­tive par­ents, but that has­n’t kept her from lead­ing a qui­et­ly hap­py life … until now.

Sud­den­ly Wil­low’s world is trag­i­cal­ly changed when her par­ents both die in a car crash, leav­ing her alone in a baf­fling world. The tri­umph of this book is that it is not a tragedy. This extra­or­di­nar­i­ly odd, but extra­or­di­nar­i­ly endear­ing, girl man­ages to push through her grief. Her jour­ney to find a fas­ci­nat­ing­ly diverse and ful­ly believ­able sur­ro­gate fam­i­ly is a joy and a rev­e­la­tion to read.

Dad's Girlfriend and Other Anxieties

Dad’s Girl­friend and Oth­er Anx­i­eties
writ­ten by Kel­lye Crock­er
Albert Whit­man, 2022
(anx­i­ety)

Anx­i­ety has always made Ava fear­ful of change, but plung­ing head­first into a new sit­u­a­tion might be just what she needs.

Dad has­n’t even been dat­ing his new girl­friend that long, so Ava is sure that noth­ing has to change in her life. That is, until the day after sixth grade ends, when Dad whisks her away on vaca­tion to meet The Girl­friend and her daugh­ter in ter­ri­fy­ing Col­orado, where even the squir­rels can kill you! Man­ag­ing her anx­i­ety, avoid­ing alti­tude sick­ness, and sur­viv­ing the moun­tains might take all of Ava’s strength, but at least this trip will only last two weeks. Right?

The Dreamway by Lisa Papademetriou

The Dreamway
writ­ten by Lisa Papademetri­ou 
Harper­Collins, 2018
(depres­sion) 

Every night, your sleep­ing body stays in your bed, while the you of you trav­els deep beneath the earth to ride the com­plex rails of the Dreamway….

Stel­la Clay thought it was just anoth­er ordi­nary day at her drab gray school. Then her twin broth­er, Cole, is attacked by a shad­owy crea­ture on their way home, and Stel­la’s world turns pos­i­tive­ly pecu­liar. Sud­den­ly, her broth­er seems dif­fer­ent, almost dim­mer, like a can­dle about to flick­er out.

And then a talk­ing mouse shows up in her bedroom.

Stel­la dis­cov­ers that the real Cole has been tak­en pris­on­er in the Dreamway. Deter­mined to find him, she sets out with the “help” of a stuck-up rodent, a ner­vous drag­on­fly, and a mys­te­ri­ous pirate, and finds her way to the dark­est edge of the Dreamway to bring her broth­er home … before he’s trapped forever.

Finding Perfect by Elly Swartz

Find­ing Per­fect
writ­ten by Elly Swartz
Far­rar, Straus & Giroux, 2016
(obses­sive com­pul­sive dis­or­der, OCD) 

To twelve-year-old Mol­ly Nathans, per­fect is:

  • The num­ber four
  • The tip of a new­ly sharp­ened No. 2 pencil
  • A crisp white pad of paper
  • Her neat­ly aligned glass ani­mal figurines

What’s not per­fect is Molly’s moth­er leav­ing the fam­i­ly to take a far­away job with the promise to return in one year. Mol­ly knows that promis­es are some­times bro­ken, so she hatch­es a plan to bring her moth­er home: Win the Lakeville Mid­dle School Poet­ry Slam Con­test. The win­ner is hon­ored at a fan­cy ban­quet with white table­cloths. Mol­ly is sure her moth­er would nev­er miss that. Right…?

But as time pass­es, writ­ing and recit­ing slam poet­ry become hard­er. Actu­al­ly, every­thing becomes hard­er as new habits appear, and count­ing, clean­ing, and orga­niz­ing are not enough to keep Mol­ly’s world from spin­ning out of con­trol. In this fresh-voiced debut nov­el, one girl learns there is no such thing as perfect.

The Golden Hour by Niki Smith

The Gold­en Hour (graph­ic nov­el)
writ­ten by Niki Smith
Lit­tle Brown Ink, 2021
(trau­ma, PTSD, anxiety)

Strug­gling with anx­i­ety after wit­ness­ing a har­row­ing instance of gun vio­lence, Manuel Soto copes through pho­tog­ra­phy, using his cell-phone cam­era to find anchors that keep him ground­ed. His days are a lone­ly, latchkey monot­o­ny until he’s teamed with his class­mates, Sebas­t­ian and Caysha, for a group project.

Sebas­t­ian lives on a grass-fed cat­tle farm out­side of town, and Manuel finds solace in the open fields and in the antics of the new­born calf Sebas­t­ian is hand-rais­ing. As Manuel aides his new friends in their prepa­ra­tions for the local coun­ty fair, he learns to open up, con­fronts his deep­est fears, and even finds first love.

The Goldfish Boy by Lisa Thompson

The Gold­fish Boy
writ­ten by Lisa Thomp­son
Eerd­mans Books for Young Read­ers, 2015
(obses­sive com­pul­sive dis­or­der, OCD) 

In this riv­et­ing debut, a boy strug­gling with OCD is unique­ly qual­i­fied to solve a kidnapping.

Lisa Thomp­son’s debut nov­el is a page-turn­ing mys­tery with an emo­tion­al­ly-dri­ven, com­plex char­ac­ter study at its core — like Rear Win­dow meets The Curi­ous Inci­dent of the Dog in the Night-Time.Matthew Corbin suf­fers from severe obses­sive-com­pul­sive dis­or­der. He has­n’t been to school in weeks. His hands are cracked and bleed­ing from clean­ing. He refus­es to leave his bed­room. To pass the time, he observes his neigh­bors from his bed­room win­dow, mak­ing mun­dane notes about their habits as they bus­tle about the cul-de-sac. When a tod­dler stay­ing next door goes miss­ing, it becomes appar­ent that Matthew was the last per­son to see him alive. Sud­den­ly, Matthew finds him­self at the cen­ter of a high-stakes mys­tery, and every one of his neigh­bors is a sus­pect. Matthew is the key to fig­ur­ing out what hap­pened and poten­tial­ly sav­ing a child’s life … but is he able to do so if it means expos­ing his own secrets, and step­ping out from the safe­ty of his home? 

Hands

Hands
writ­ten by Tor­rey Mal­don­a­do
Nan­cy Paulsen Books / PRH, 2023
(trau­ma, abuse) 

Trev would do any­thing to pro­tect his mom and sis­ters, espe­cial­ly from his step­dad. But his stepdad’s return stress­es Trev — because when he left, he threat­ened Trev’s mom. Rather than live scared, Trev takes mat­ters into his own hands, lit­er­al­ly. He starts learn­ing to box to han­dle his step­dad. But every­one isn’t a fan of his plan, because Trev’s a tal­ent­ed artist, and his hands could actu­al­ly help him build a bet­ter future. And they’re let­ting him know. But their advice for some dis­tant future feels use­less in his real­i­ty right now. Ulti­mate­ly, Trev knows his future is in his hands, and his hands are his own, and he has to choose how to use them.

Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos

Joey Pigza Swal­lowed the Key
writ­ten by Jack Gan­tos
Far­rar, Straus & Giroux, 1998
(ADHD) 

“They say I’m wired bad, or wired sad, but there’s no doubt about it — I’m wired.”

Joey Pigza­’s got heart, he’s got a mom who loves him, and he’s got “dud meds,” which is what he calls the Rital­in pills that are sup­posed to even out his wild mood swings. Some­times Joey makes bad choic­es. He learns the hard way that he should­n’t stick his fin­ger in the pen­cil sharp­en­er, or swal­low his house key, or run with scis­sors. Joey ends up bounc­ing around a lot — and even­tu­al­ly he bounces him­self all the way down­town, into the dis­trict spe­cial-ed pro­gram, which could be the end of the line. As Joey knows, if he keeps mak­ing bad choic­es, he could just fall between the cracks for good. But he is deter­mined not to let that happen.

In this antic yet poignant nov­el, Jack Gan­tos has per­fect pitch in cap­tur­ing the humor, the off-the-wall inten­si­ty, and the seri­ous chal­lenges that life presents to a kid deal­ing with hyper-activ­i­ty and relat­ed disorders.

The Labors of Hercules Beal

The Labors of Her­cules Beal
writ­ten by Gary D. Schmidt
Clar­i­on Books, 2023
(PTSD, grief) 

This nov­el is about sev­enth-grad­er Herc Beal whose recov­ery after the trau­mat­ic loss of both par­ents in his small Cape Cod town becomes a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of friends and com­mu­ni­ty (and humor). This is an EXCELLENT book.

The List of Things That Will Not Change
writ­ten by Rebec­ca Stead
Wendy Lamb Books, 2020
(char­ac­ter in therapy) 

After her par­ents’ divorce, Bea’s life became dif­fer­ent in many ways. But she can always look back at the list she keeps in her green note­book to remem­ber the things that will stay the same. The first and most impor­tant: Mom and Dad will always love Bea, and each other.

When Dad tells Bea that he and his boyfriend, Jesse, are get­ting mar­ried, Bea is thrilled. Bea loves Jesse, and when he and Dad get mar­ried, she’ll final­ly (final­ly!) have what she’s always want­ed — a sis­ter. Even though she’s nev­er met Jesse’s daugh­ter, Sonia, Bea is sure that they’ll be “just like sis­ters anywhere.”

As the wed­ding day approach­es, Bea will learn that mak­ing a new fam­i­ly brings ques­tions, sur­pris­es, and joy.

OCDaniel by Wesley King

OCDaniel
writ­ten by Wes­ley King
Paula Wise­man Books, S&S, 2021
(obses­sive com­pul­sive dis­or­der, OCD) 

Daniel is the back-up punter for the Erie Hills Ele­phants. Which real­ly means he’s the water boy. He spends foot­ball prac­tice per­fect­ly arrang­ing water cups — and hop­ing no one notices. Actu­al­ly, he spends most of his time hop­ing no one notices his OCD habits — he calls them Zaps: avoid­ing writ­ing the num­ber four, for exam­ple, or flip­ping a light switch on and off dozens of times over. But every­thing changes when a girl at school, who is unkind­ly nick­named Psy­cho Sara, notices him for the first time. She does­n’t just notice him: she seems to peer through him.

Then Daniel gets a note: “I need your help,” it says, signed, Fel­low Star Child — what­ev­er that means. And sud­den­ly Daniel, a total no one at school, is swept up in a mys­tery that changes every­thing for him.

With great voice and grand adven­ture, this book is about feel­ing dif­fer­ent and find­ing those who understand.

Simon Sort of Says

Simon Sort of Says
writ­ten by Erin Bow
Dis­ney Hype­r­i­on, 2023
(PTSD, char­ac­ter in therapy)

This excel­lent nov­el is about 12-year-old Simon who has just moved to Grin & Bear It, Nebras­ka, after being the only kid in his class to sur­vive a school shoot­ing. With won­der­ful humor, heart, and a great cast of char­ac­ters, Simon learns how to heal.

Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand

Some Kind of Happiness
writ­ten by Claire Legrand
Simon & Schus­ter, 2016
(anx­i­ety, depression) 

Things Fin­ley Hart does­n’t want to talk about:

  • Her par­ents, who are hav­ing prob­lems. (But they pre­tend like they’re not.)
  • Being sent to her grand­par­ents’ house for the summer.
  • Nev­er hav­ing met said grandparents.
  • Her blue days — when life feels over­whelm­ing, and it’s hard to keep her head up. (This hap­pens a lot.)

Fin­ley’s only retreat is the Ever­wood, a for­est king­dom that exists in the pages of her note­book. Until she dis­cov­ers the end­less woods behind her grand­par­ents’ house and real­izes the Ever­wood is real — and holds more mys­ter­ies than she’d ever imag­ined, includ­ing a fam­i­ly of pirates that she isn’t allowed to talk to, trees cov­ered in ash, and a strange old wiz­ard liv­ing in a house made of bones.

With the help of her cousins, Fin­ley sets out on a mis­sion to save the dying Ever­wood and uncov­er its secrets. But as the mys­ter­ies pile up and the fright­en­ing sad­ness inside her grows, Fin­ley real­izes that if she wants to save the Ever­wood, she’ll first have to save herself.

Starfish
writ­ten by Lisa Fipps
Nan­cy Paulsen Books, 2021
(char­ac­ter in therapy) 

Ever since Ellie wore a whale swim­suit and made a big splash at her fifth birth­day par­ty, she’s been bul­lied about her weight. To cope, she tries to live by the Fat Girl Rules — like “no mak­ing waves,” “avoid eat­ing in pub­lic,” and “don’t move so fast that your body jig­gles.” And she’s found her safe space — her swim­ming pool — where she feels weight­less in a fat-obsessed world. In the water, she can stretch her­self out like a starfish and take up all the room she wants. It’s also where she can get away from her pushy mom, who thinks crit­i­ciz­ing Ellie’s weight will moti­vate her to diet.

For­tu­nate­ly, Ellie has allies in her dad, her ther­a­pist, and her new neigh­bor, Catali­na, who loves Ellie for who she is. With this sup­port buoy­ing her, Ellie might final­ly be able to cast aside the Fat Girl Rules and starfish in real life — by unapolo­get­i­cal­ly being her own fab­u­lous self.

A Thousand Minutes to Sunlight

A Thou­sand Min­utes to Sun­light
writ­ten by Jen White
Far­rar, Straus & Giroux, 2021
(anx­i­ety, fam­i­ly sub­stance abuse) 

A sen­si­tive­ly-writ­ten mid­dle grade nov­el about a girl strug­gling with anx­i­ety, fam­i­ly secrets, and the mean­ing of friend­ship.

Cora is con­stant­ly count­ing the min­utes. It’s the only thing that stops her brain from rat­tling with wor­ry, from con­vinc­ing her that dan­ger is up ahead. Afraid of the unknown, Cora spends her days with her feet tucked into sand, mar­veling at La Quin­ta beach’s giant waves and her lit­tle sis­ter Sun­shine’s bound­less ener­gy.

And then dan­ger real­ly does show up at Cora’s doorstep―her absen­tee uncle, whose sud­den pres­ence in the mid­dle of the night makes her par­ents ner­vous and secre­tive. As dawn breaks once more, Cora must piece togeth­er her fam­i­ly and her­self, one minute at a time.

Trou­ble With a Tiny T 
writ­ten by Mer­ri­am Sar­cia Saun­ders
Cap­stone Edi­tions, 2021
(ADHD) 

Twelve-year-old West­in Hop­per gets in trou­ble — a lot. At home, at school, at his grand­par­ents’ house…. His ADHD always seems to mess with his brain, mak­ing him do impul­sive things. So when West­in finds a mag­ic bag that makes his thoughts come alive, he thinks it’s the tick­et to fix­ing his life.

Instead, his wan­der­ing brain strikes again, con­jur­ing up a mini T. rex, an army of head­less plas­tic men, and a six-inch Thor. Now they all live in his bed­room, eat­ing lunch meat, wreak­ing hav­oc, and grow­ing. And West­in does­n’t know how to make them go away.

He enlists his fel­low social out­cast, Leno­ra, to help him make things right. Leno­ra helps West­in real­ize that his tal­ent for draw­ing could be the key to solv­ing his prob­lems. If West­in can focus while draw­ing, maybe he can learn to con­trol the mag­ic and get rid of the crea­tures in his room. But he’d bet­ter learn quick­ly. Tiny T is grow­ing — and fast.

Walk­ing on Earth and Touch­ing the Sky:
Poet­ry and Prose
writ­ten by Lako­ta Youth
at Red Cloud Indi­an School
by Tim­o­thy P. McLaugh­lin
illus­tra­tor by S.D. Nel­son
(trau­ma, men­tal illness) 

This is an excep­tion­al poet­ry col­lec­tion writ­ten by Lako­ta stu­dents in the fifth, sixth, sev­enth, and eighth grades at Red Cloud Indi­an School on the Pine Ridge Indi­an Reser­va­tion in South Dako­ta. The his­toric school was found­ed in 1888 at the request of Chief Red Cloud of the Oglala Lako­ta. The poems enable read­ers to learn about the unique lives and her­itage of stu­dents grow­ing up in such dis­tinc­tive cir­cum­stances and strad­dling cul­tures. The col­lec­tion was com­piled by a teacher at the school, work­ing with school admin­is­tra­tors, and con­tains nev­er-before-pub­lished art­works by award-win­ning artist S. D. Nelson.

What Jamie Saw

What Jamie Saw
writ­ten by Car­olyn Comen
name­los, 2009
(trau­ma, domes­tic violence) 

Jamie’s moth­er is there to catch the baby —this time. She does what she must to keep her fam­i­ly out of harm’s way, but still the shock waves of Van’s act rever­ber­ate through their lives. What Jamie Saw is a mov­ing, vis­cer­al drama­ti­za­tion of vio­lence in the home, told not from the point of view of a vic­tim, but as wit­nessed by a nine-year-old boy. The impact of observed vio­lence per­pe­trat­ed against loved ones is pro­found and destruc­tive, and alto­geth­er too com­mon. Draw­ing on his mother’s des­per­ate strength, his own deter­mi­na­tion, and help from an unex­pect­ed friend, Jamie con­fronts his fear and anx­i­ety — learn­ing, adapt­ing, and triumphing.

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