Radha and Jai’s Recipe for Romance is Nisha Sharma’s sophomore YA novel. It follows Radha, a skilled Kathak dancer who decides to stop dancing after anxiety and a family betrayal cause her to bow out of a contest. Jai is a student at the Princeton Academy of the Arts where Radha transfers. Although she is insistent on not dancing, her dance skills may be Jai’s ticket to medical school (which he’s convinced e can’t attend). Add Radha’s grandfather’s cookbook, Jai’s family dilemmas, and plenty of dancing, and this story comes to life.
Review | The Magical Imperfect
The Magical Imperfect is a middle grade verse novel about a boy named Etan. Etan develops selective mutism after his mom has to go to a treatment facility for a mental disorder in 1980’s San Francisco. Around that time, mini-earthquakes are frequent and Etan tries to keep up his daily schedule, which is basically school and then time with his grandfather. Sometimes, he helps an older shopkeeper in the neighborhood walk her dog and run errands. It is while he is on one of those errands that he meets Malia, a Filipina-American girl with severe eczema.
Review | To Tell You the Truth by Beth Vrabel (+ Giveaway)
Fourth-grader Trixy’s gran died in a car accident (Trixy was in the back seat and survived) and since then things at home have not been the same. Her parents don’t want to talk about Gran and her mom isn’t eating well and is exercising a bit too much. Trixy’s only solace is her gran’s stories. However, only Trixy seems to believe Gran’s stories about her childhood and she promised Gran that she would keep some of the stories to herself. But when Trixy NEEDS to write stories to pass fourth grade, the only stories she can think to write are Gran’s.
52 YA Books About Mental Illness
The list features picks with young people or their parents/relatives dealing with a mental illness. Conditions covered include PTSD, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, alcoholism, and eating disorders.
Review | The Road to Wherever
In The Road to Wherever, 11-year-old June (Henry Junior) Ball’s mother sends him off on the road with his adult second cousins after his father disappears without a word. Cousins Thomas and Cornell are “Ford Men” traveling throughout the US to fix people’s old Ford trucks for free. The Ford owners only have to buy spare parts.
As the road trip progresses, the the men teach June about Ford trucks, fixing cars, and being kind. June also processes his father’s absence while expanding his heart by meeting just as many broken humans as Ford trucks.
48 Middle Grade Books About Mental Illness
48 hopeful middle-grade books about mental illness accurately depicting the struggles of mental health issues — from anxiety (OCD, PTSD), hoarding, schizophrenia, and major depression.
Review | Breathing Underwater
Thirteen-year-old Olivia is excited about going on a road trip back to California with her sister and their uncle and aunt. Their family moved to Tennessee from California three years ago, and the girls had buried a time capsule before their move. Olivia’s big sister Ruth is now 16 and clinically depressed. She has good and bad days and is on medication to manage her depression. Olivia feels responsible for Ruth’s happiness and has a plan to recover their time capsule, while doing a photo project during their trip to remind Ruth of good times and make her just a little happier. But she soon finds out that with mental illness, it’s not always so simple.
Review | The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling
I fell for The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling just for its name alone. Thankfully, the premise is equally as captivating. Anna Chiu is a high schooler who has her hands full caring for her little brother and sort of watching over her younger teen sister. Their father runs a restaurant in a nearby town (about two hours away by car) and their mother is so depressed, she hasn’t gotten out of bed in weeks. When Anna convinces her dad to let her work at their restaurant on weekends, she starts a relationship with Rory, the new delivery boy.
As Anna gets to know Rory (and his own mental illness struggles), things at home go from bad to worse. Anna’s mother gets out of bed, but begins acting erratic and her relationship with her sister, as well as their father becomes strained as Anna has to step in to provide her mother the support she needs.
Graphic Novel Review | Guts by Raina Telgemeier
Guts is based on Telegmeier’s experience with anxiety as a tween. After a case of the stomach flu in their family, Raina becomes terrified of vomit and vomiting. Her anxiety manifests physically as a stomachache which further exacerbates her fear of vomiting and intensifies her anxiety. Her parents take her to see a doctor who after multiple tests assures them that Raina is “healthy as a horse.” Unsure what to do next, they take her to see a therapist.
Jennifer Camiccia, Author of the Memory Keeper, on the Link Between Science and Storytelling
In this interview, we chat about why she wrote about such a strong grandparent-grandchild bond, parental mental illness, HSAM (Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory), and why science and storytelling will always be linked to her. Of course, we talk about more fun stuff like traveling and horses.
Review| The Girls at 17 Swann Street
disintegrates after an injury halts her career as a ballerina and she moves from Paris to America with her husband. Working as a cashier in a store, she begins to slip into disordered eating. At first, her husband Matthias tries to maintain normalcy, acting like all is well. Eventually, he convinces her to get treatment after she faints in the bathroom one night.
