Mental Illness in Young Adult Literature Exploring Real

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Richmond, Kia Jane, author.

Title: Mental illness in young adult literature : exploring real struggles
through fictional characters / Kia Jane Richmond.
Description: Santa Barbara, California : Libraries Unlimited, [2019] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018028307 (print) | LCCN 2018043372 (ebook) | ISBN
9781440857393 (eBook) | ISBN 9781440857386 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Mental illness in literature. | Young adult fiction,
American—21st century—History and criticism.
Classification: LCC PS374.M44 (ebook) | LCC PS374.M44 R53 2019 (print) |
DDC 813/.6093561—dc23
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 This book is dedicated to my family—especially
my husband, David Neumann,
and my parents, Raydean and Jane Richmond.
Thank you for your love and support throughout my journey.
Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

Chapter 1
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Related
Disorders 13

Chapter 2
Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders 25

Chapter 3
Bipolar Disorder and Related Disorders 46

Chapter 4
Depressive Disorders 59

Chapter 5
Anxiety Disorder and Related Disorders 80

Chapter 6
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Related Disorders 97

Chapter 7
Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders 115

Chapter 8
Feeding and Eating Disorders 132
vii
viii Contents

Chapter 9
Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders 155

Chapter 10
Nonsuicidal Self-Injury and Suicidal Behavior Disorders 177

Resources for Exploring Mental Illness through Young Adult

Literature in the Classroom 195
Sample Lesson Plan for When Reason Breaks 197
Sample Lesson Plan for The Impossible Knife of Memory 200
Classroom Activity: Close Reading and Language
Analysis 202
Classroom Activity: Mental-Health Professionals and
Treatments in Young Adult Literature 204
Textbooks on Young Adult Literature 205
Community-Health Resource List 206

Index 209
Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Northern Michigan University (NMU) for granting me

sabbatical leave in 2017–18 to write this book and for financial support in
the form of an NMU Faculty Research Grant. This funding allowed me to
purchase the literary texts and other materials necessary to complete this
book. In addition, the grant permitted me to share my research at confer-
ences sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
and the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the NCTE (ALAN) as
well as at the Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Lit-
erature, sponsored by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The grant also
funded my giving a series of guest lectures at the University of Central
Florida.
The NMU English department has been my academic home since 2001,
and, from the beginning, I received encouragement for my scholarly
endeavors from administrators, faculty, and students alike. In particular, I
appreciate the support of my current department head, Lynn Domina; my
former department head, Ray Ventre; my mentor Tom Hyslop; and col-
leagues Liz Monske and Wendy Farkas. I also want to acknowledge the
phenomenal preparation I received in graduate school at Texas A & M
University—Commerce (with special thanks to Donna Dunbar-Odom,
Dick Fulkerson, and Bill Bolin) and, subsequently, Illinois State University
(with appreciation for the guidance of Jan Neuleib, Patricia Dunn, Ken
Lindblom, and Claire Lamonica).
Many educators in the field of English find a professional home in
national and state organizations such as NCTE, the English Language
Arts Teacher Educators (ELATE), the Conference on English Leadership,
and the Michigan Council of Teachers of English. I am no exception. I
have been fortunate to attend many conferences sponsored by these
groups and to share my ideas and research with generous colleagues
from across the United States. Specifically, I would like to thank Nicole
ix
x Acknowledgments

Sieben, Elsie Lindy Olan, and Steve Bickmore for their enthusiasm, sup-
port, and willingness to dialogue about English education research, peda-
gogy, and young adult literature. Likewise, I am grateful to Mary Anna
Kruch for sharing her writing journey and for her encouragement of my
development as a teacher and scholar. Thanks also to my editor, Maxine
Taylor, for her contributions to my growth as a writer. In addition, I am
indebted to my many students for reminding me of the power of young
adult literature to spark discussions about mental illness and associated
stigma.
In his 1961 book On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psycho-
therapy, Carl Rogers states that the good life involves “the stretching and
growing of becoming more and more of one’s potentialities. It involves the
courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life” (p.
196). My book is the direct result of my own stretching and becoming, in
great part thanks to my therapist, Tonja Acker-Richards, who encouraged
me to reflect, experiment, and approach my life, my research, and the writ-
ing of this book from a creative and playful stance. For this, I am forever
grateful.
I have a beautiful network of friends and family who have listened
kindly, prodded empathetically, and advised honestly throughout the pro-
cess of writing this book. These individuals include Ruth Watry, JoeyLynn
Selling, Jessica Glendon, Lori Nelson, Mitch Klett, Jessica Holman, Kim
David, and Pam Wells as well as Kathy Dearth, Kelly Richmond Lion, and
Heather Thomlinson. I appreciate their unwavering support. Finally, I am
grateful to my parents, Raydean and Jane Richmond, for their steadfast
love and encouragement, and to my husband, David Neumann, for his
unconditional acceptance and for filling our home with laughter.
Introduction

YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE: DEFINITION, HISTORICAL

CONTEXT, AND INCLUSION IN THE CURRICULUM
“Young adult literature” (YAL) is a term that Michael Cart, on behalf of the
Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), defines as “inherently
amorphous, for its constituent terms ‘young adult’ and ‘literature’ are
dynamic, changing as culture and society—which provide their context—
change.” Some experts in the field, such as Chris Crowe, describe YAL as
including “all genres of literature published since 1967 that are written for
and marketed to young adults,” whom he argues are typically between
grades 7 and 12. The date—1967—refers to the year that S. E. Hinton’s The
Outsiders was published and marketed specifically to adolescent readers; it
is also the year that many scholars identify as the beginning of young adult
literature as a field. Since then, young adult literature as a category of
books has increased exponentially and has grown to include not only real-
istic fiction but also fantasy, science fiction, romance, adventure, poetry,
graphic novels, and nonfiction. With the population of American adoles-
cents estimated at 42 million and climbing, the number of young adult
literature books being written and read in the United States is unlikely to
decline in the near future.
The positive attributes of young adult literature have been well-estab-
lished by scholars in our field. Cart notes that these include YAL’s capacity
to help readers see themselves on the pages of the books, to foster “under-
standing, empathy, and compassion by offering vividly realized portraits of
1
2 Mental Illness in Young Adult Literature

the lives—exterior and interior—of individuals who are unlike the reader,”
to tell young adults “the truth,” even when it is unpleasant. With so many
benefits, one might think that young adult literature would be included
regularly in curricula in American high schools. However, in a landmark
study of literature in the secondary classroom in 1993, Arthur Applebee
identified exclusively classic texts as the 10 most frequently taught book-
length texts at the high-school level. These include several Shakespearean
plays as well as Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter,
Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, and To Kill a Mockingbird (p. 65).
Almost 20 years later, Joyce Stallworth and Louel Gibbons found that clas-
sic texts (e.g., Romeo and Juliet, The Great Gatsby, The Crucible, To Kill a
Mockingbird) were still most frequently taught in secondary schools. The
researchers did find that more multicultural, contemporary, and young
adult literature (e.g., The Giver and The Secret Life of Bees) were included
overall.
Cart argues that young adult literature helps adolescents become civi-
lized while finding role models, making sense of their world, developing
personal philosophies of being, and determining right and wrong.
In a 2016 interview by Paul Volponi about the “grittiness” of contempo-
rary young adult literature, Chris Crutcher (former teacher, therapist, and
author of more than a dozen award-winning young adult novels) says:
The power of good, realistic young adult fiction is its capacity to give voice
to the reader, and to make connection; to allow the reader to experience
situations and imagine her- or himself in them. . . . Out of that power comes
the opportunity for readers to look at life through different eyes and gain
empathy for the plight of others, or to find solace in characters who walk the
same emotionally dangerous paths they walk. It also has the power to
entertain.
For the reasons mentioned by Cart, Crutcher, and countless others, librar-
ies have put more emphasis on developing young adult collections and ser-
vices. As Denise Agosto, executive director of the Center for the Study of
Libraries, Information, and Society at Drexel University, notes, “This means
that cutting-edge teen librarians view positive impact on teens’ lives as the
ultimate goal of library programs and services, first analyzing youths’
needs and then designing collections, programs, and services to meet
those needs.”
Likewise, educators at middle schools, high schools, and even colleges
across the United States have been integrating more young adult literature
into their curricula. Most commonly, the young adult books are brought
into courses in the English language arts as supplements to classic texts, as
options in literature circles, or as recommendations for individual readers.
This could be due to the adoption of the Common Core State Standards
 Introduction 3

(CCSS) in a majority of states; 42 of 50 states (as of 2015) have approved the

standards. The CCSS for the English language arts emphasize rigor and
text complexity in literature and informational texts, and, to help educa-
tors, a list of “exemplar texts” was created. The list for grades 9 through 12
includes 48 titles of “stories” (novels and short fiction) and “drama”; of
those, only The Book Thief fits with Crowe’s definition of young adult litera-
ture. The others are classic texts such as those identified by Applebee’s and
Stallworth and Gibbons’s studies. While the exemplar list is not intended
to be a required-reading list, some school administrators have encouraged
English teachers to teach from the itemized texts exclusively. However,
some English teachers are taking the initiative and arguing for the adop-
tion of young adult novels in their schools, especially those that are cultur-
ally relevant or of high interest for accelerated, average, or reluctant
readers.
Therapists, counselors, and social workers also find using young adult
literature beneficial when working with adolescents. Bibliotherapy, using
texts to help individuals cope with mental-health issues, has long been a
strategy used by those in the helping professions. Samuel Gladding, a pro-
fessor of counseling at Wake Forest University, explains that through bib-
liotherapy, individuals can learn something about themselves, experience
therapeutic release, feel less isolated and more connected to others, and
develop new methods of dealing with their problems (p. 81). An analysis of
research on bibliotherapy published in Therapeutic Recreation Journal in
2017 identified it as an effective intervention with cognitive, behavioral,
and emotional benefits, especially for youth who have experienced trauma.
The American Psychiatric Association reports the prevalence of childhood
trauma (e.g., physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; violence; war; disasters;
suicides; etc.) at staggeringly high rates (more than 65 percent of children
report experiencing trauma by age 16). With the National Institute of
Mental Health estimating that more than 20 percent of the young adults
experience mental illness, the need for young adult literature that includes
characters with mental illnesses has never been higher.

DEFINITION OF MENTAL ILLNESS AND ITS PRESENCE IN

YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) defines mental illnesses as
“health conditions involving changes in thinking, emotion, or behavior (or
a combination of these)”; typically, they are connected to “distress and/or
problems functioning in social, work or family activities.” The term “men-
tal disorders” is used by the American Psychiatric Association in the fifth
edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
4 Mental Illness in Young Adult Literature

(DSM-5). A mental disorder is defined as “a syndrome characterized by

clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion
regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological,
biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.” In
this book, the terms mental disorder and mental illness will be used
interchangeably.
It is important to note that the DSM-5 is a respected resource on mental
disorders used by most American mental-health professionals. The man-
ual offers common terminology for psychologists, psychiatrists, counsel-
ors, therapists, physicians, researchers, and others to facilitate
communication about mental disorders between practitioners and clients.
The DSM-5 does not have information about specific treatments for men-
tal illnesses; instead, it is a diagnostic tool that was updated in 2013 after
careful examination of advances in scientific research and with input from
experts in psychiatry, psychology, neurology, pediatrics, social work, nurs-
ing, and statistics.
Mental illnesses affect individuals and families across the United States
regardless of socioeconomic status, race or ethnic background, gender,
sexuality, religion/belief system, or educational status. Estimates from the
National Institute of Mental Health indicate that one in five adults and one
in five adolescents experience some form of mental illness in any given
year. Thus, our schools and our communities include both adolescents and
adults who are living with issues such as depression, anxiety, substance-
use disorders, schizophrenia, and other mental disorders. However, despite
the proliferation of mental disorders in America, stigma associated with
mental illness is still prevalent. Scholars from Columbia University define
“stigma” as existing when components of “labeling, stereotyping, separa-
tion, status loss, and discrimination” happen concurrently. Likewise, in the
Anti-Defamation League’s “Pyramid of Hate,” stigmatizing (“biased”) atti-
tudes and behaviors include making insensitive remarks, fear of differ-
ences, microaggressions, ridicule, use of slurs or epithets, social avoidance,
and dehumanization.
In a review of research associated with stigma and mental illness,
researchers Angela Parcesepe and Leopoldo Cabassa note that stigmatiz-
ing beliefs about individuals with mental illness include fears of violence,
“shame, blame, incompetency, punishment, and criminality” and fre-
quently cause problems with seeking mental-health care and result in
discrimination and isolation. The study notes that while Americans gen-
erally seem to have positive outlooks toward the pursuit of professional
help for mental illness, those attitudes can vary by sociodemographic
characteristics (e.g., ethnicity, economic status). Still, with the advent
of the Internet and improved access to information and entertainment
venues, beliefs about mental illness are being shaped by popular culture
 Introduction 5

in the 21st century in ways that cut across what were once distinct
populations.
Popular culture channels (e.g., television, film, magazines) as well as
Internet sources (Web sites) and social-media outlets (e.g., YouTube, Face-
book, Instagram) frequently feature stories, news, and images that nega-
tively portray people with mental illnesses, which contributes to ongoing
stigma. This issue, documented in many research studies, is summarized
succinctly on the APA’s “Mental Health in Media and Entertainment” site:
Mental health misrepresentation in entertainment media can fuel stigma,
leading to discrimination against people with mental illnesses and barriers
to treatment. Media that romanticizes or features graphic acts of violence,
especially self-harm and suicide, may trigger imitative violence, risking
copycat acts.

In a study reported in Health Affairs on news-media coverage between

1995 and 2014, researchers note that news sources continued to focus on
“interpersonal violence in a way that is highly disproportionate to actual
rates of such violence among the US population with mental illness.”
Moreover, only 14 percent of the reviewed news stories included references
to effective treatment for or recovery by those with mental illnesses. How-
ever, Dean Haycock points out in Characters on the Couch: Exploring Psy-
chology through Literature and Film, “Although violent, antisocial
characters often seem to dominate films and even fiction today, in fact, it is
not difficult to find characters, both in film and in literature, that embody
aspects of positive mental health” (p. xxii).
Research on mental illness in young adult literature has been on the rise
in the last decade. Suzanne Reid and Sharon Stringer in a 1997 ALAN
Review essay point to the positive impact that young adult novels can have.
They note that these books “tend to deal with issues that are immediately
relevant to adolescents and to use a style that is so accessible that it
bypasses the need for translation by the intellect into emotional imagery.”
Jennifer Miskec and Chris McGee in 2007 draw attention to issues of
self-mutilation in young adult literature texts such as Shelley Stoehr’s
Crosses and Patricia McCormick’s Cut, which feature characters who
engage in self-injurious behaviors. Beth Younger, in 2009, publishes a book
focused on female sexuality and body image in young adult literature.
Learning Curves: Body Image and Female Sexuality in Young Adult Litera-
ture includes an examination of eating disorders in texts such as Life in the
Fat Lane and Nell’s Quilt. Douglas Fisher, in a 2011 Journal of Adolescent
and Adult Literacy essay, takes up the issue of suicide in young adult litera-
ture and highlights multiple roles that literacy educators have in suicide
prevention. Similarly, Kristine Pytash, in the same journal in 2013, dis-
cusses changes in English candidates’ understandings about the topics of
6 Mental Illness in Young Adult Literature

bullying and suicide through reading young adult novels such as Thirteen
Reasons Why and Hate List.
There seems to have been an explosion of research on the topic of men-
tal illness in young adult literature, starting in 2014 with the Language
Arts Journal of Michigan’s publication of an entire volume dedicated to the
issue of mental illness. In this issue, scholars discuss everything from defi-
nitions of insanity and madness to building empathy and breaking stereo-
types associated with mental illness in young adult literature. In the
introduction to the special volume, editors Lisa Schade Eckert and Robert
Rozema note that educators who have been prepared to teach reading and
writing frequently find themselves responsible for “identifying individual
triggers for affected students, dealing with IEPs, school safety” and other
issues connected to mental illness (p. 6).
In 2015, Diane Scrofano’s “Not as Crazy as It Seems: Discussing the
New YA Literature of Mental Illness in Your Classroom or Library” in
Young Adult Library Services was published. In that essay, Scrofano exam-
ines trends in young adult novels featuring characters with obsessive-com-
pulsive disorder (OCD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression,
schizophrenia, and other mental disorders. Also in 2015, in the journal
Study and Scrutiny, Sarah Thaller offers an examination of two young
adult novels’ problematic depictions of mental illness: the classic Go Ask
Alice by Anonymous and 21st-century text Liar by Justine Larbalestier. In
the same issue of Study and Scrutiny, Louise Freeman takes readers
through an analysis of one of the most popular young adult novels of all
time, in “Harry Potter and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: Muggle
Disorders in the Wizarding World.” Freeman argues that the psychological
disorders portrayed in Harry Potter urge readers to decrease the stigma of
mental illness and “extend understanding and acceptance to mental health
patients and their loved ones.” Finally, Karen Jensen, in the November 2015
issue of the School Library Journal, recommends various young adult nov-
els that help with “Tackling Mental Health though YA Lit.”
In 2016, Ashley Corbett highlights for English Journal readers the ben-
efits of using mental-illness-focused books such as The Perks of Being a
Wallflower, The Impossible Knife of Memory, and All the Bright Places. In
the same year, Linda Parsons engages in critical analysis of young adult
novels focused on eating disorders in “The (Re)presentation of Fat Female
Protagonists and Food Addiction in Young Adult Literature” in Study and
Scrutiny. Also in 2016, Diane Scrofano’s article on “OCD Tales” is included
in School Library Journal. In that piece, she discusses her own OCD diag-
nosis and treatment as well as several young adult novels written about
OCD. In 2017, in “‘The Last Block of Ice’: Trauma Literature in the High
School Classroom,” published in The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Lit-
eracy, Amber Moore and Deborah Begoray discuss the potentially
 Introduction 7

transformative learning experiences of including young adult novels such

as Speak in high-school literature classrooms. Finally, in the Journal of
Popular Culture in 2018, Anastasia Wickham’s “It Is All in Your Head:
Mental Illness in Young Adult Literature” examines the representation of
schizophrenia in the young adult texts Challenger Deep and Freaks Like Us.
This book builds on this renaissance of research focused on mental ill-
ness issues in young adult literature, categorizing and explaining how
mental disorders (and the characters who have them) are portrayed in
21st-century young adult literature, specifically in fiction texts aimed at
high-school readers. Both positive and negative representations of mental
illness and its treatment in young adult literature are included in this text.

FOCUS AND ORGANIZATION OF THIS BOOK

In 2009, 25 percent of books reviewed in a survey of young adult litera-
ture by Melanie Koss and William Teale focused on illness or mental
issues. Yet since the publication of Sharon Stringer’s Conflict and Connec-
tion: The Psychology of Young Adult Literature in 1997, no authoritative,
comprehensive, book-length text dedicated to the issue of mental disor-
ders in literature for young adults has been written. This book emphasizes
21st-century young adult fiction texts and draws on diagnostic criteria
from the DSM-5. The goal is to provide school and youth services librari-
ans, educators, counselors, and others who work with adolescents with
information about how fictional characters who have mental illnesses are
portrayed in young adult novels. Moreover, important social and identity
issues such as race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, social media, peer
pressure, friendships, gender, and sexuality are discussed.
All chapters in this text are formatted in a similar fashion. Each starts
with a description of a specific mental disorder as described by the DSM-5,
including criteria for diagnosis and available treatment options. Also
included are summaries of selected young adult novels whose characters
demonstrate symptoms of mental illness. Each of the summaries is com-
prised of a discussion of the basic plot and the role of mental illness in
moving it forward, which character has the mental illness, and how it
affects that individual as well as family members, peers, teachers, and oth-
ers. Chapters also describe how the disorder affects the character person-
ally and how parents, friends, teachers, health-care providers, and others
in the community treat that character. In addition, readers learn what kind
of treatment or help the character receives (if any) and how that affects
that person and the outcome of the book. Last, each chapter includes a
bibliographic list of additional texts (young adult, nonfiction, and adult fic-
tion) that also address the disorder(s).
8 Mental Illness in Young Adult Literature

The scope of this book is limited. Books selected for analysis met the
following criteria: published after the year 2000, feature characters who
are old enough to be in high school, include at least one character who is
living with a mental illness, and are written in English. Every effort has
been made to include characters from an assortment of geographic loca-
tions in the United States (as well as one that takes place in England) and
from a variety of socioeconomic statuses, genders, sexualities, religious/
spiritual beliefs, and family structures.

OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS
There are 10 content chapters included in this text, each of which
focuses on a specific mental disorder as defined by the DSM-5. The 30
young adult novels analyzed in this book are as follows:
• Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): Club Meds
(2006) by Katherine Hall Page and Motorcycles, Sushi, and One Strange
Book (2010) by Nancy Rue
• Schizophrenia: Your Voice Is All I Hear (2015) by Leah Scheier, Freaks
Like Us (2012) by Susan Vaught, Challenger Deep (2016) by Neal Shus-
terman, and Schizo (2014) by Nic Sheff.
• Bipolar Disorder: Crazy (2012) by Amy Reed and This Is How I Find
Her (2013) by Sara Polsky.
• Depressive Disorders: When Reason Breaks (2015) by Cindy L. Rodri-
guez, Get Well Soon (2009) by Julie Halpern, Forgive Me, Leonard Pea-
cock (2013) by Matthew Quick, and It’s Kind of a Funny Story (2007) by
Ned Vizzini.
• Anxiety Disorder: The Nature of Jade (2007) by Deb Caletti, Finding
Audrey (2015) by Sophia Kinsella, and Highly Illogical Behavior (2016)
by John Corey Whaley.
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Not as Crazy as I Seem (2003) by
George Harrar, Every Last Word (2015) by Tamara Ireland Stone, and
Turtles All the Way Down (2017) by John Green.
• Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders: Something Like Normal
(2012) by Trish Doller, The Impossible Knife of Memory (2014) by Lau-
rie Halse Anderson, and The Way I Used to Be (2016) by Amber Smith.
• Feeding and Eating Disorders: Wintergirls (2009) by Laurie Halse
Anderson, Pointe (2014) by Brandy Colbert, Starved (2012) by Michael
Somers, and Sugar (2015) by Deirdre Riordan Hall.
• Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders: Beneath a Meth Moon
(2012) by Jacqueline Woodson, Dope Sick (2009) by Walter Dean
Myers, and Clean (2011) by Amy Reed.
 Introduction 9

• Nonsuicidal Self-Injury and Suicidal-Behavior Disorders: Girl in

Pieces (2016) by Kathleen Glasgow and Suicide Notes (2008) by Michael
Thomas Ford.

CONCLUSION
In a 2014 article in the APA’s Monitor on Psychology, Amy Novotney
draws attention to an increase in the number of college students seeking
mental-health services. She explains that more young adults are attending
college in the 21st century, citing the National Center for Education Statis-
tics’ report of a 32-percent increase in enrollment between 2001 and 2011.
However, colleges and universities, like high schools in the United States,
have limited budgets, and counseling and other mental-health care services
are already stretched thin. The National Association of Secondary School
Principals, in a published position statement about mental-health care,
expounds on the problem, stating that 20 percent of high schools have no
school counselor, and many others have to share specialized personnel such
as school psychologists and social workers, which increases their caseloads
and limits their availability to help youth who need services.
This book aims to offer information about selected 21st-century young
adult literature focused on mental illness for those in schools and public
libraries, education and teacher training, various mental-health professions,
as well as others who work with high-school adolescents. The chapters in
this book aim to help librarians make well-informed collection development
and readers’ advisory decisions and to assist classroom teachers in choosing
novels for inclusion in their curricula. Therapists and mental-health workers
should find the textual analysis in this book beneficial when considering rec-
ommendations of literature for teenaged clients, their families, or friends.
Moreover, each chapter includes lists of additional young adult books, non-
fiction texts, and adult literature focused on the specific mental illness dis-
cussed. The appendices included feature strategies for incorporating young
adult novels about mental disorders into existing curricula and community
initiatives focused on confronting stigma associated with mental illness.
Teachers, librarians, counselors, and community-health specialists are also
invited to investigate the professional resources shared in the appendices.
This book offers insight into how mental illnesses are portrayed in
young adult fiction published in the 21st century. With the National Insti-
tute of Mental Health estimating that one in five teens experiences a debil-
itating mental disorder, readers should pay attention to possible indications.
Warning signs can include the teenager frequently feeling worried or hav-
ing trouble sleeping, struggling in school, avoiding spending time with
friends, having spells of intense activity, harming him/herself or others,
engaging in risky behavior, hearing voices, or having thoughts of suicide.