Dr. Annie's Bookshelf

A child psychologist's book recommendations for growth and healing

Taking Dyslexia to School

Written by Lauren E. Moynihan
Illustrated by Tom Dineen
Age range: 1st grade through 3rd grade.
Recommended for: This book is best for children who have recently gone through neuropsychological or psychoeducational testing and have been given a diagnosis of dyslexia. It normalizes the testing process, briefly explains the diagnosis, and shares about different accommodations that have helped the narrator improve his reading and better access his education. If a child is expressing confusion, worry, or shame about their diagnosis or recommended accommodations, this book could be a start to reassuring and clarifying conversations with a trusted adult.
Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation
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Benji, the Bad Day, and Me

Written by Sally J. Pla
Illustrated by Ken Min
Age range: Kindergarten through 4th grade.
Recommended for: This book is a very sweet, heart-warming read for a non-autistic child with an autistic sibling. The book validates the challenges of having an autistic (or otherwise neurodiverse, disabled, etc.) sibling while showing the depth and importance of the siblings’ love for one another. This book is probably best for children who are both able to recognize each other’s feelings to some extent and to engage in reciprocal affection and/or caretaking behaviors.
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Do You Want to Play?

Making Friends with an Autistic Kid

Written by Daniel Share-Strom
Illustrated by Naghmeh Afshinjah
Age range: Preschool through 2nd grade.
Recommended for: This book, written by an autistic author, is a celebration of parallel play and perspective taking, and it is excellent for the peers or siblings of autistic children who are minimally verbal and/or who prefer parallel play (i.e., playing side-by-side but independently) to cooperative play. This story models non-patronizing, inclusive play and encourages kids to learn to play in ways that are fun for everyone.
Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation
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Grumpy Monkey

Written by Suzanne Lang
Illustrated by Max Lang
Age range: Preschool through 2nd grade.
Recommended for: This book helps kids to recognize when they’re feeling grumpy (and maybe also sad, as is common with grumpiness), and it gives children permission to feel grumpy without needing to try to fix it right away. The story validates how annoying it is when everyone tries to give you unsolicited advice for how to feel better, and it ends with a sweet moment between friends who agree that “it’s a wonderful day to feel grumpy.”
Evidence-Based Practices: Emotional Literacy
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Way Past Jealous

Written by Hallee Adelman
Illustrated by Karen Wall
Age range: Kindergarten through 2nd grade.
Recommended for: This book is a great read for a child who is feeling jealous of a peer/sibling’s accomplishments or attention and who has found themselves subsequently acting in ways that they aren’t proud of. It validates the feeling of jealousy and gently encourages a child to consider their values (e.g., friendship) and to act in ways that align with these values. It also includes a nice modeled apology at the end.
Evidence-Based Practices: Emotional Literacy
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Jabari Tries

Written and illustrated by Gaia Cornwall
Age range: Preschool through 3rd grade.
Recommended for: This is a fun, heart-warming book about a boy and his baby sister engineering a model plane and overcoming the frustration of crashes to find success. It’s a lovely book to read with a child who has a hard time managing frustration and/or who is disinclined to try again after an initial failure.
Evidence-Based Practices: Emotional Literacy, Diaphragmatic Breathing
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Max Archer, Kid Detective

The Case of the Wet Bed

Written by Howard J. Bennett, MD
Illustrated by Spike Gerrell
Age range: Kindergarten through 4th grade.
Recommended for: Written by a pediatrician, this book is excellent for a child who experiences regular bed-wetting and who is feeling embarrassed or ashamed of this. It very effectively destigmatizes nocturnal enuresis (i.e., nighttime bed-wetting) with its cool kid detective protagonist who shares that he wet the bed until he was 11-years-old, and it provides a few tips for reducing frequency of bed-wetting.
Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation
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A Bedtime Yarn

Written by Nicola Winstanley
Illustrated by Olivia Chin Mueller
Age range: Preschool through 1st grade.
Recommended for: This comforting bedtime story helps a child to visualize a connection between themselves and their caregiver as they drift off to sleep. It’s a book filled with vibrant imagery about magical, colorful dreams that ends with a little cub being brave and conquering his fear of the dark. Any child with a caregiver who knits will particularly enjoy this book.
Evidence-Based Practices: Visualization
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The Tossy Turny Princess and the Pesky Pea

A Fairy Tale to Help You Fall Asleep

Written by Susan Verde
Illustrated by Jay Fleck
Age range: Preschool through 3rd grade.
Recommended for: This riff off of The Princess and the Pea teaches children relaxation skills to use before bed when they are having trouble feeling sleepy (including stretching, taking deep breaths, and doing a mindfulness exercise of placing worries on stars and watching them twinkle and disappear). It’s a fun, well-written read, and it easily leads into a child practicing the relaxation skills along with the Princess. Adults might benefit from joining in as well!
Evidence-Based Practices: Diaphragmatic Breathing, Mindfulness, Relaxation
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Mr. Worry

A Story about OCD

Written by Holly L. Niner
Illustrated by Greg Swearingen
Age range: 1st through 3rd grade, or perhaps even 4th grade.
Recommended for: This book is exclusively for a child who has recently been diagnosed with OCD and is starting treatment with a therapist who is trained in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) . The book reassures children that they aren’t “crazy” or the only ones with OCD, and it teaches about ERP and the strategy of externalizing and talking back to OCD (the boy in this book calls his OCD thoughts “Mr. Worry”). It provides children with an analogy of medication being a child’s running shoes, the therapist being the coach, and the child being the runner (ERP is the “running strategy”). The book is a bit outdated but it’s still one of the best picture book introductions to ERP that I’ve been able to find.
Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Cognitive Restructuring, Medication
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The Thing Lou Couldn’t Do

Written and illustrated by Ashley Spires
Age range: Preschool through 2nd grade.
Recommended for: Many children will enjoy this book simply because it’s a good book. It’s a particularly great read for a child who avoids tasks they’re afraid they won’t succeed at. It’s a story that normalizes and neutralizes failure and celebrates giving something a try.
Evidence-Based Practices: Exposure
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The Not-So-Scary Dog

Written by Alanna Propst
Illustrated by Michelle Simpson
Age range: Kindergarten through 3rd grade.
Recommended for: This book is a fairly fun introduction to exposure therapy and could be really helpful for therapists to use when introducing this concept to children. It’s especially relevant for a child who has a fear of dogs, but it could apply to many specific fears (e.g., fear of spiders, snakes, clowns, elevators, heights). Caregivers who are familiar with the concepts of exposure therapy and feel prepared to support a child in facing their fears in this way may also find this book useful for an at-home read.
Evidence-Based Practices: Exposure
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Pilar’s Worries

Written by Victoria M. Sanchez
Illustrated by Jess Golden
Age range: Kindergarten through 3rd grade
Recommended for: This book is best for children with performance anxiety. Pilar is a ballet dancer, but children with anxiety about other types of performances (e.g., musical performances, theater, class presentations, sports) would also likely benefit from reading this story. It normalizes performance anxiety, which is an important intervention (i.e., there’s nothing wrong with you for feeling anxious about a performance), and it teaches strategies of breathing, visualization, and talking with a loved one.
Evidence-Based Practices: Diaphragmatic breathing, Visualization
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When Harley Has Anxiety

A Fun CBT Skills Activity Book to Help Manage Worries and Fears

Written by Regine Galanti, Ph.D.
Illustrated by Vicky Lommatzsch
Age range: Kindergarten through 5th grade.
Recommended for: I highly recommend this workbook for parents and children to work through together over many weeks or even months. It’s ideal for a child who would like to feel less anxious and who is ready to learn some strategies for getting their anxiety more under control. This workbook is based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and is a comprehensive collection of evidence-based practices for childhood anxiety. Therapists may also be interested in using this book in session with clients as a way of structuring their treatment or as between-session “homework” for children and their caregivers as a means of reinforcing in-session content.
Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Cognitive Restructuring, Exposure, Diaphragmatic Breathing, Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Mindfulness
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My Happy Sad Mummy

Written by Michelle Vasiliu
Illustrated by Lucia Masciullo
Age range: Preschool through 1st grade.
Recommended for: Exclusively for young children with parents or caregivers with Bipolar I Disorder who have been hospitalized or will likely need to be hospitalized. This book isn’t perfect. The mother has “happy” days and “sad” days, which isn’t an accurate representation of manic or depressive episodes for most people, and it’s just not a particularly engaging story. But it does introduce the idea of a parent having up and down moods and needing to be hospitalized. Its primary message is that no matter what, the child is loved by their parent with bipolar disorder, and they will be taken care of even if their parent with bipolar disorder is not always able to take care of them.
Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation
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My Family’s Changing

A first look at family break-up

Written by Pat Thomas
Illustrated by Lesley Harker
Age range: Preschool through 1st grade.
Recommended for: This book provides a developmentally appropriate explanation of what divorce is and how it might impact a child. The book is fairly dry but useful; parents may even choose to read this on their own and borrow the language when talking with their children.
Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Emotional Literacy
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The Princess and the Fog

A Story for Children with Depression

Written and illustrated by Lloyd Jones
Age range: Preschool through 3rd grade. It has a story that younger kids will understand and enjoy, but there’s enough complexity that older kids will connect with it too.
Recommended for: This book is great for any child at all interested in fantasy or fairy tales who is experiencing their own version of the fog (i.e., depressive symptoms). This book could be used to start conversations about mood, therapy, behavioral activation , and/or medication .
Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Behavioral activation, Medication
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When Fuzzy Was Afraid of Losing His Mother

Written by Inger Maier, Ph.D.
Illustrated by Jennifer Candon
Age range: Preschool through Kindergarten.
Recommended for: Young children with separation anxiety will likely benefit from reading this book with a caregiver or therapist. It introduces the idea that practicing separations will help the anxiety, not make it worse, and that caregivers aren’t being mean if they don’t accommodate their child’s separation anxiety. It easily leads into a conversation about how a child can cope with separations and how they and their caregivers can start practicing small separations to build up to bigger ones (i.e., graded exposures).
Evidence-Based Practices: Exposure, Visualization, Cognitive Restructuring
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Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great

Written and illustrated by Bob Shea
Age range: Preschool through 2nd grade.
Recommended for: This book is a fun, silly read that can start conversations about jealousy, perspective-taking, and self-esteem. It’s ideal for a child who has criticized, rejected, or even bullied someone due to feelings of insecurity or jealousy (as Goat initially does in this story). It’s less ideal for someone who has been on the receiving end of this. Children are often told that someone is being mean to them because they are “just jealous,” and although this is well-intentioned and sometimes true, it can come off as invalidating or even overly permissive of hurtful behaviors.
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A Kids Book About Depression

Written by Kileah McIlvain
Age range: Best for older kids–3rd or 4th grade through middle school.
Recommended for: This book is great for an older child who has recently been diagnosed with a depressive disorder or who a parent or provider suspects may be holding onto heavy feelings without sharing them. It vividly puts words to the experience of depression without sugarcoating the pain, and it provides hope that sharing about this experience with a loved one and getting help will lead to a child “learning to see through the darkness.”
Evidence-Based Practices: Psychoeducation, Medication
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