Hiya my lovely readers. This last week has been Mental Health Awareness Week and this is a something I’m very passionate about. As a reader but also as a school librarian as well. Book are a huge part that can help understand but also ease the struggle that is our mental health. We will struggle with it at one point or another in our lives but know this. You are not alone…
The theme this year is ‘anxiety’. I know I have suffered with this, more so because of the pandemic and I think that hasn’t helped a lot of peoples mental health. Working in a school, I see it every day. But books are our saviours, not only to they provide empathetic approach through character perspectives and storylines but they are also a way to escape this world. That’s ultimately want we want to do when we feel like this, the need to be somewhere else.
So today I want to share with you 5 book recommendations that feature Anxious characters…
Influential by Amara Sage
As a reader and a librarian is extremely important that we explore social media and the toxicity it can have to teenagers and their mental health and wellbeing. I feel this particular book is a must read as I feel anxiety is huge when it comes to the digital world. Amara really captures the reality of social media and how it can affect our mental health in a dark way.
We shouldn’t have to feel the pressure to be on social media but it’s almost a trend now and it’s not a health one. Read this one to see how Almond Brown overcomes this and finds solace in the people and friends she loves.
Read my review
Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne
“Being a spinster means not altering who you are, but what you believe in….
Are you normal? What is normal? Is there a perfect specimen of humanity that is normal? Personally there isn’t such a thing as normal, what you are is YOU! That’s how it should be. Not just for feminism but for OCD and mental health. It’s being aware, it being who you are even if you have some unique quirks. Like the girls say you need to love yourself. This is how much this novel has presented itself to me in so many ways.
Under Rose-Tainted Skies by Louis Gornall
Under Rose Tainted Skies is a raw and emotional depiction of mental health. Lousie Gornall is a wonderful an poetic writer that really highlights today’s society and reality that people are not the same and shouldn’t be treated the same either.
It’s with great sadness that Louis is no longer with us now, but I will whole heartedly recommend this book. It’s been a long time I read this book but it’s one I’ve remembered.
A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard
One of my favourite books from Sara without a doubt. It’s beautiful. I recommend this book to my students all the time. This particular pick isn’t as heavy topical wise, but it focuses on characters that communicate via British Sign Language, one is deaf and the other mute. Their differences bring them together but not define them. It wasn’t until Steph and Rhys said ‘hello’ that we understand what they go through on a day-to-day basis. The anxiety of being different and understanding the world differently and little more slower than others lets them define them.
Solitaire by Alice Oseman
The Heartstopper books we know and love but focuses on Charlie sister Tori Spring. Tori is an enigma of a character. She is as you see her in the show and comics. She loves the little world she has created for herself. But everything gets real in the last year of Higgs Grammar School.
Solitaire is the perfectly written honest real book of a struggling and depressed teenager going through life, making decisions that will change your life. I see that anxiety in life all the time at school.
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