The #MHYALit Discussion Hub – Mental Health in Young Adult Literature
After our first year of the #SVYALit Project, we decided that we at TLT liked the way the format worked and wanted to use it to discuss other topics of relevance to the life of teens. One of the ideas we discussed was using the format to discuss mental health issues in the life of teens and in YA literature, but I was not yet quite ready to delve more deeply into that topic because I was not yet ready to admit my own personal struggles with depression and anxiety. Earlier this year I did in fact share my personal story, which seemed to be the last stumbling point in TLT embracing the #SVYALit format to move forward in discussing mental health. So today we are excited to announce that in addition to #SVYALit and #FSYALit, in 2016 we will be using this same format to more fully discuss both poverty and mental health in the life of teens. Thus, we are excited to put out a call for guest posters for the #MHYALit Discussion (Mental Health in YA Literature).
1 in 5 teens will be diagnosed with some type of mental health issue. In addition, many other teens will be affected by mental health issues in the family as their parents, siblings, and friends struggle with mental health issues. During 2016 TLT would like to really use YA literature to discuss mental health issues in the life of teens. And we need your help. If you would like to write a guest post or share a book list, please contact me at kjensenmls at yahoo dot com. We will be talking throughout 2016, but we would really like to have a good array of posts to launch in early 2016. Amanda MacGregor and Ally Watkins will be helping to organize and coordinate this discussion.
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There are lots of important conversations happening right now in many ways about mental health issues. Lots of people are being brave and sharing their personal struggles. Lots of great teen advocates, librarians, authors, and other professionals are engaging in these important conversations and we recommend reading and engaging in as many of them as possible. It’s a huge issue in the life of teens. We are not qualified experts in this discussion, though many of us at TLT have struggled with mental health issues in a variety of ways. And we have of course worked with many teens who have shared their personal stories and struggles with us; this has impacted our understanding of the issues and made us more cognizant to how important this topic is. We hope you’ll join us in reading and writing about this topic.
Project Goals:
- To facilitate a discussion about the ways various mental health issues are presented and discussed in YA literature.
- To examine specific titles and create lists of titles that those wanting to look for titles with diverse representations of various mental health issues can add to their collections or buy for the teens in their lives.
- To include a wide variety of voices on the topic of mental health issues in the life of teens.
Some Basic Information
According to the NCCP, approximately 20% of adolescents have a diagnosed mental health issue. Most mental health disorders begin to present in the adolescent years. Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death among adolescents. According to NAMI, 50% of children who present with a mental illness will drop out of school.
In addition, a variety of teens are living in houses where they are being raised by a parent who suffers from some type of mental health issue. Approximately 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder. These are the parents, grandparents, and love ones of many of our teens.
Mental health issues are an important issue for teens. Reading stories about characters with mental health disorders can help teens understand their parents, their friends, or their selves. It can give them hope. It can affirm and validate their experiences. Below are links to several lists of YA titles that deal with mental health issues in some way.
Addiction
Where Are the Books on Addiction for Your Mental Health Book List? by author Christa Desir
Anxiety/Panic
Anxiety, Me and It’s All Your Fault, by guest blogger Liz Anderson
Pretending to be Normal: A Story About My Anxiety by Jessica Sankiewicz
Anxiety, Me and Fangirl, a guest post by Danielle Masterson
Panic: What Fear Feels Like by author Tom Leveen
Book Review: Underwater by Marisa Reichardt
Accepting Anxiety, a guest post by Jessica Spotswood
How to Manage, reflections on anxiety by Ally Watkins
Knowing When to Talk About It, a Guest Post by Kathryn Holmes
Anxiety Disorder, My Son, and Me by Amanda MacGregor
It’s Okay Not to Be Okay, a guest post by author Claire Legrand
Ill Enough, a guest post by Nita Tyndall
Bipolar
Shattered Illusions: Growing up with a Bipolar Father, a guest post by Kim Baccellia
Depression
Depression and Obsession: The Pressure of Teen Athletes, by Mia Siegert
Major Depressive Dropout, a guest post by Bryson McCrone.
On depression and Melina Marchetta’s Saving Francesca, by author Carrie Mesrobian
Reading Lists: Depression, a guest post by Natalie Korsavidis
Book Review: We Are The Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson
Eating the Nuts, a guest post reflecting on depression by author Mackenzi Lee
Book Review: 100 Days of Cake by Shari Goldhagen
Eating Disorders
Haunting the 616.85 Section, a #MHYALit guest post by BELIEVAREXIC author J. J. Johnson
The Fantasy of Being Thin and YA Lit, a guest post by Katelyn Browne
“Eating Disorder” Books: How They Only Show Half of the Struggle, a guest post by Jen Petro-Roy
Grief and Loss
A Place Where I Know: Writing About Grief by Hannah Barnaby
Survivor’s Guilt: The Aftermath of Grief by Sherri L. Smith
Medication
On Medication, a guest post by author Emery Lord
Mental Health Care/Advocacy
When the Ending Is Not the End: Mental Health and Accepting the Long-Term Journey by Annie Cardi
On Narrative Expectations and the Reflection of Truth, by author Stephanie Kuehn
How Libraries Can Help Teens, by Librarian Dawn Abron
You Are Not Alone, The Primary Message by E. Sparling
How My Debut Year Got Me to Therapy and Why That’s a Good Thing by Annie Cardi
Taking a Historical Look at Mental Health with Mindy McGinnis and A MADNESS SO DISCREET
Book Review: The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork
Pushed Too Hard: Academic Pressure and Mental Health Concerns by Cindy L. Rodriguez
Talking about mental health-related books and issues with teens
The Best Way to Erase the Stigma of Mental Health – Talk About It! by Deanna Cabinian
Puzzling Through Teen Mental Health, a conversation with Emily Franklin and H.A. Swain
You’re Not Alone, a guest post by author Pintip Dunn
Psychological Thrillers and Mental Health
Kneejerk Reactions are Just Jerky, a guest post by author Stacie Ramey
Faith Shaming and Mental Illness, Reflecting on Faith and Mental Illness for the #MHYALit Project
Five Ways to Cope: A Survival Guide for Family Members of Those with Mental Illnesses
Seven Myths About Mental Illness, a guest post by author Paula Stokes
Let’s Talk About How We Talk About Mental Health
Please Let’s Stop Telling People with Mental Health Issues to Just X, Y or Z
From Our Mailbox: #MHYALit and POC
This Book Will Save Your Life, a guest post by author Kathleen Glasgow
My Definition of Crazy, a guest post by author Lois Metzger
Why You Shouldn’t Ban Your Kid from the Internet, a guest post by Laura Tims
#MHYALit Interview with HIGHLY ILLOGICAL BEHAVIOR author John Corey Whaley
Enough: A #MHYALIT guest post by Katie H.
Teens, Mental Health and the Places it Takes Them, a guest post by Kerry Sutherland
OCD
Author Tamara Ireland Stone Interviews a Teen Called C about OCD
10 Things I Wish You Knew About OCD, by author Tamara Ireland Stone and C
The Story is Enough: Writing the Books I Needed to Read, a guest post by Jackie Lea Sommers
OCD Tales – Reflections on an OCD Sufferer’s Sabbatical Study of YA Novels of Mental Illness by Diane Scrofano
PTSD
Chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Ada, and Me by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
It’s Not Your Fault: Living Each Day with PTSD by Tom Leveen
Speak Up! A guest post about PTSD by author Shannon Greenland
Book Review: Meet Me Here by Bryan Bliss
Schizophrenia
Reading Lists: Schizophrenia, a guest post by Natalie Korsavidis
Self-harm
Picking at Problems, a look at self-harm by author Robison Wells
The Truth I Forgot to Remember, a guest post by Sashi Kaufman
Book Review: Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow
Suicide
Author Ann Jacobus Talks About Suicide
Sunday Reflections: Kicking off the Year of #MHYALit
Before and After, a guest post by Melissa Montovani
Nineteen Years of Living, a guest post by Shaun David Hutchinson
Therapy
Writing a Therapy-Positive Book, a guest post by Marisa Reichardt
What You Want to Hear, a guest post by Shari Goldhagen
Booklists
Reading Lists: Schizophrenia, a guest post by Natalie Korsavidis
Reading Lists: Depression, a guest post by Natalie Korsavidis
Book Reviews
Book Review: The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork
Book Review: We Are The Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson
Book Review: Underwater by Marisa Reichardt
Book Review: 100 Days of Cake by Shari Goldhagen
Book Review: Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow
Book Review: Meet Me Here by Bryan Bliss
Previous TLT Posts
Top 10: Books dealing with mental health (guest post by Kim Baccellia)
How Mental Illness Tried and Failed to Ruin My Life (guest post by Robison Wells)
Mental Health Medications Are Not Your Enemy
List of Lists: Teens and Mental Health Resources
Medication, Depression, and I Was Here
The Murder of a Shopping Bag Lady: mental illness in three acts
The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness (discusses medication)
Additional Book Lists and Discussions Around the Internet
- Stephanie Khuen: YA Highway
Kuehn presents a very comprehensive reading list of YA lit titles broken down by various subjects and issues including anxiety disorders, eating disorders, bipolar disorders, thought disorders and impulse control. The list isn’t annotated, but it does link back to the Goodreads page for a description and publisher information. - Adventures of Lit Girl
This page presents a list of mostly YA titles, there are a few adult titles, broken down by various issues. Only covers are presented, you have to click through to the Goodreads page to get the book description and publisher information. - We’re All Mad Here: Mental Illness in YA Fiction
Bitch Magazine discusses some of the issues in titles in a brief article. - Can Teen Fiction Explain Mental Illness to My Daughter?
The Guardian presents a good article about teens navigating personal and family mental illness and discusses how YA fiction can help teens in these situations. - Reach Out Reads
In 2011, Inspire USA released a short list of titles called Reach Out Reads. These titles deal with a variety of mental health topics including bullying in schizophrenia. There is only one title for each topic. - I wanted to share with you a post that Francisco X. Stork wrote for YARN a few years back. It’s about his experiences with depression and how he tapped into them for a novel he was working on. This novel we now know is “The Memory of Light” which is coming out in 2016: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25665016-the-memory-of-light. Here’s the link to the post: http://yareview.net/2012/05/depressed-not-depressing/(from Lourdes Keochgerien)
- YARN also recently posted this short story by Elizabeth Maria Naranjo that tackles depression in a very subtle and quiet yet powerful way: http://yareview.net/2015/08/we-never-get-to-talk-anymore/
- Stacked:Mental Illness in Ya is a Minefield: http://stackedbooks.org/2014/12/mental-illness-in-ya-as.html
- Stacked: Mental Illness in Contemporary YA, a guest post by author Hilary T. Smith: http://stackedbooks.org/2013/11/mental-illness-in-contemporary-ya-guest.html
- Disability in Kidlit: Stigmatizing Treatment of Mental Illness in Fiction: http://disabilityinkidlit.com/2015/05/21/discussion-stigmatizing-treatment-of-mental-illness-in-fiction/
- Bustle: 8 of the Most Realistic Portrayals of Mental Illness in YA Fiction: http://www.bustle.com/articles/23614-8-of-the-most-realistic-portrayals-of-mental-illness-in-contemporary-ya
- The Guardian: Mental Health and Books, teenagers speak out: http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/feb/08/mental-health-ya-fiction-teenagers-speak-out
- 8 Great YAs About Mental Health Issues (Adahlia Adler): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/8-great-yas-about-mental-health-issues/
For Statistics, Facts and Resources, Check Out These Resources
- Teen Mental Health
A pretty comprehensive site - Healthy Children
An article on watching for danger signs - Office of Adolescent Health
Another comprehensive site that looks at adolescent mental health issues. - Children of Parents with Mental Illness
Help for children who have parents that suffer from a mental illness. - From Risk to Resilience: Support for Children whose Parents Have Mental Illness
Help for children who have parents that suffer from a mental illness.
We need your help building our resource guide! Have a book list or blog post you want to see included? Please email us a link at kjensenmls at yahoo dot com. Although we will be taking guest posts all throughout 2016, if you know you would like to participate in the launch in early 2016, please email me by the end of September. We will be continuing our discussions on #SVYALit, #FSYALit, #Poverty and #MHYALit throughout all of 2016. Thank you for your help in discussing this important issues in the life of teens.
Filed under: Mental Health, Mental Illness, Teen Issues
About Karen Jensen, MLS
Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).
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One good book that I can think of is Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell.
Also, Elanor and Park (if discussing poverty)
As a result of the Sandy Hook shootings tragedy in Connecticut, President Obama created an initiative called Youth Mental Health First Aid Training. The website for information is: http://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/cs/take-a-course/course-types/youth/ . It will direct individuals to where they can take a one-day course where they will learn how to identify teens who may have mental health issues and where to direct them for help. These courses are very appropriate for library staff. My organization received one of these grants and we are holding workshops over the next year.