Bibliotherapy for Every Occasion (Or Not)

At the library, I'm often asked for reading suggestions that fall under the heading of "bibliotherapy"—in other words, books to help kids through a tough time. Some topics, such as the death of a loved one, coping with bullying, or beginning school are very well-covered. Others, particularly on "less universal" situations, are hard to come by.

For example, last month I was reviewing my library's picture book collection for books about various medical problems and/or disabilities. I believe it was Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children that recently published an extensive bibliography on everything from ADHD to lactose intolerance to Crohn's disease. I was surprised how few of the recommended titles were trade publications. A great many appeared to be essentially self-published by hospitals, nonprofit organizations, and even individuals. Of these, the few that managed to snag a review in one of the journals tended to get pretty atrocious reviews. The stories were described as didactic, the writing and illustration inferior to that which is published in trade. But when the alternative is no book at all, what's a parent to do? Likewise, if I were a writer with a book on one of these topics and couldn't find a publisher who'd take it, wouldn't I rather self-publish than do nothing at all?

A picture book topic not quite as overlooked in these years of war is parents and family members working overseas in the military. Several have been published in the past four years. Our library owns the following:

• The Impossible Patriotism Project, by Linda Skeers
• My Red Balloon, by Eve Bunting
• Red, White, and Blue Good-Bye, by Sarah Wones Tomp
• Love, Lizzie: Letters to a Military Mom, by Lisa Tucker McElroy
• When Dad's at Sea, by Mindy L. Pelton
• While You Are Away, by Eileen Spinelli

But while books like these can help families cope, I believe there is no one book that will ever say everything that needs to be said in a specific situation. We get that all the time with the death bibliotherapy questions—"But don't you have a book about a little boy's special relationship with an older babysitter who moves to Indiana and then gets cancer and passes away?" Nobody can tell your story like you can.

Yesterday's Salon.com article Once Upon a Time, Dad Went to War touchingly addresses just this conundrum. A mother writes how no book she found, published in trade or self-published, gave her children the message they needed to hear. Her solution: to write a simple, stapled, sticker-covered book just for them.

"Why do you write?" seems to be a popular interview question for authors, but it's always struck me as a little dumb. There may be different things playing into a writer's decision to devote a good chunk of their life to setting words down on paper, but I think ultimately it always comes down to feeling like you have something to say and wanting to say it your way. That goes for writers whose books about potty-training are published by big houses, writers who self-publish a book for kids about IBS, and writers who hand-write a story to comfort their children while Dad's away at war.