The Story Cure. Ella Berthoud

island gathering specimens for his zoology collection – kept in a dedicated room in the house – we observe, over his shoulder, crab spiders as they change colour to match their surroundings, and black caterpillars that are in fact baby ladybirds. We watch him adopt a tortoise (Achilles) and a pigeon (Quasimodo), who become his constant companions. A young owl (Ulysses) also spends months in his pocket. Gerry’s protectiveness over these creatures is humbling: finding a nest of earwig eggs one day, he erects a sign that reads ‘BEWAR – EARWIG NEST – QUIAT PLESE’. Telling of an idyllic, lost world in which moonlit bathing among porpoises was a regular evening event, no one can read this book without marvelling in a whole new way at the wonders of the natural world. Out of its pages many a young botanist, zoologist or eco-warrior will be born.

      SEE ALSO: scared, being

       anorexia

      SEE: eating disorder

       ants in your pants, having

      SEE: still, unable to sit

       anxiety

       The Invisible String PATRICE KARST, ILLUSTRATED BY GEOFF STEVENSON

       The Bubble Wrap Boy PHIL EARLE

       Watership Down RICHARD ADAMS

      Being entirely dependent on others, babies have good reason to be anxious, and reassuring, familiar stories – such as Guess How Much I Love You, The Runaway Bunny, Thomas the Tank Engine and Frog and Toad⁷ – create safety and comfort at the end of every day. When levels of anxiety continue into toddler-hood and beyond, throw in The Invisible String. This simple picture book introduces the idea that we’re all attached to those who love us by an invisible string, and that whenever a child misses their grown-up, the grown-up will feel a corresponding tug on their heart.

      Constant, low-level anxiety can be debilitating, shutting off opportunities and generally getting in the way of living life to the full. It can also be contagious. Fourteen-year-old Charlie Han in The Bubble Wrap Boy suffers from anxiety passed down from his mother. She still keeps a stair gate at the top of the stairs, and she won’t let him go to the cinema in case he chokes on a piece of popcorn. So when Charlie discovers he has a spectacular talent for skateboarding, it’s an exciting moment for the overprotected boy. And to call it his mother’s worst nightmare is the understatement of the year.

      Suddenly, Charlie – who has always been mocked at school for being small, and for being best friends with ‘Sinus’ Sedgley, so named for his enormous nose – finds himself admired for his cool, new hobby. He can fly; he can turn in the air – and he feels like the king of the world. But then his mother catches him at it and launches into a tirade in front of his peers, which is pretty much Charlie’s worst nightmare. Now it’s time for Charlie’s worst nightmare. But there’s more humiliation to come. Once his mother has reduced him to a laughing-stock, a group of boys swathe him in bubble wrap and, thus mummified, leave him to walk home.

      It takes the root of his mother’s anxiety to be revealed for Charlie to break free of his own. By the end, the Bubble Wrap Boy has become a graffiti legend. This triumphant, liberating story – great for the grown-up too – is best enjoyed by kids with a sheet of bubble wrap to pop as they go.

      The long-eared, twitchy-nosed inhabitants of Watership Down – a story which stands up well to the test of time – will feel like kindred spirits to tweens and teens with an anxious streak, constantly on the alert for danger as rabbits are. As long as they can hear the blackbird singing, the rabbits know it’s safe to graze. But the second the blackbird’s song turns to a distressed squawking, the rabbits startle, sniff the air, then bolt like blazes in the other direction.

      When a sign goes up in their field announcing a new building development, Fiver senses that something ‘very bad’ is going to happen – and he tells his brother, Hazel. Hazel has learnt to listen to his brother’s presentiments; and that very night they split ranks with the heads of the warren and lead any other rabbit that will listen to a new, safe home. Fiver’s sixth sense saves the rabbits again and again on their journey – and ultimately brings them to the high, dry downs where they can see for miles around.

      Many of the rabbits are prone to panic; but they also make the most of the strengths bestowed on them by Fritha, their creator, in the stories of long ago. ‘Digger, listener, runner,’ the incantation goes – and whenever they’re threatened by one of their ‘thousand enemies’, they put their skills to use, digging burrows, listening for danger, and running to safety. Give this story to the nervous child in your midst and prompt them to notice their own special strengths. They may not be able to stop their anxiety, but their strengths will help them to live more successfully with it.

      SEE ALSO: depression • worrying

       apocalypse, fear of the

      Teens worried about the end of civilised life as they know it will find comfort – and a great role model for how to survive – in Robinson Crusoe.⁸ The apocalypse may be a long time coming, though, and imagining worst-case scenarios with the help of a good dystopian novel will keep them on their toes as they wait, while also encouraging them to appreciate what they’ve (still) got.

      THE TEN BEST DYSTOPIAN READS

       The Giver LOIS LOWRY

       Pax SARA PENNYPACKER, ILLUSTRATED BY JON KLASSEN

       Floodland MARCUS SEDGWICK

       The Handmaid’s Tale MARGARET ATWOOD

       The Death of Grass JOHN CHRISTOPHER

       The Hunger Games SUZANNE COLLINS

       The Stand STEPHEN KING

       Station Eleven EMILY ST JOHN MANDEL

       Uglies SCOTT WESTERFELD

       The Day of the Triffids JOHN WYNDHAM

      SEE ALSO: anxiety • planet, fearing for the future of the • worrying

       appendicitis

      SEE: The Novel Cure

       arguments, getting into

       The Quarreling Book CHARLOTTE ZOLOTOW, ILLUSTRATED BY ARNOLD LOBEL

       Ordinary

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