Books exploring worry and anxiety
Below are a range of books that help children understand the feeling of worry. All of the suggested follow on activities will work best if they are done collaboratively with your child. Help your child understand their emotions by sharing how the emotion feels to you. Working collaboratively will help to make the activities more worthwhile, enjoyable and feel safe.
Ruby's Worry by Tom Percival, explores what happens when worries are ignored. The story follows Ruby who tries to ignore her worry, which works until it grows bigger and bigger. The book is a great starting point for discussing worries and illustrating why talking about worries helps to make them manageable.
A great activity to do after reading this book is to design your own worries and think about what makes them feel bigger and what makes them feel calmer.
See Ruby's Worry on Bookshop.org
Worrysaurus by Rachel Bright, is a book all about a little dinosaur who becomes overrun with worries. This book encourages the reader to let go of their worries and focus on the positives.
After reading this book you might like to discuss positive affirmations that help Worrysaurus as well as the importance of sharing worries with a trusted person when we don’t feel able to manage them on our own.
See Worrysaurus on Bookshop.org
The Huge Bag of Worries by Virginia Ironside, shares the story of Jenny who has a lot of worries. She carries the worries with her everywhere until a neighbour sits with her and helps her sort through her worries. With help Jenny is able to let go of worries that are not hers to hold and watch as some worries vanish when she talks about them.
When you have read this book you could collaboratively think about different worries, who they belong to and what can be done about them.
See The Huge Bag of Worries on Bookshop.org
Hey Warrior by Karen Young, is a book aimed at slightly older children. It explains in a very accessible way what job the amygdala has in our brain. The book wonderfully mixes fiction and fact giving children a better understanding of how their brain works and why it reacts in certain ways to stressors.
This book includes lots great follow up activities. After reading it, you can encourage children to think about what makes their amygdala’s alarm go off and what helps them to stay in control of their amygdala.
See Hey Warrior on Bookshop.org
Chanda and the Devious Doubt is the second book in the Dream Defenders Series by Tom Percival. In this book Chanda is overcome with self doubt, through a series of events and some help from her friends she learns how to overcome her doubt and feel more confident.
After reading this book, encourage children to think about when they feel doubt. Help them to think of ways they can increase their confidence and quieten their doubt.
See Chanda and the Devious Doubt on Bookshop.org
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If you have any suggestions of books to add to this list please let me know.
