Face & Fight Fear: Books to Explore Feelings

These books for children, from two to twelve and up, were selected from the suggestions of parents, teachers, and children's librarians in Washington DC, Sacramento, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. All looked for time-tested books that are positive, hopeful and realistic.

The books for the very youngest may help them express feelings about this week’s tragic events. For children six and up, we looked for stories about children effected by war or tragedy, tales about heroes and hostages. We suggest these books not as solutions for ending war or terrorism, but as possibilities for providing comfort.

We will update this list as fast as we can.

Books are available in public and school libraries, in bookstores, or at online retailers.
Face & Fight Fear © Parents' Choice 2001

Pearl Harbor Child : A Child's View of Pearl Harbor from Attack to Peace
by Dorinda Makanaonalani Nicholson
Woodson House Publishing; ISBN: 0931503027
$12.95, Ages 12-15

As a child, Dorinda Nicholson watched the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor from her front yard. In this book, Nicholson details her memories of blackouts, air raid drills, victory gardens, censorship, gas masks and much more. Told through a child's eyes, the story presents an unusual perspective of World War II that will appeal to both children and adults.

Feelings
By Aliki
Greenwillow/Mulberry; ISBN: 068806518X
$5.95, Ages 2 - 6

With small, detailed, cartoon-like drawings and simple dialogue, this book is best savored by one or two readers at a time, since the pictures are too little to be visible in a group setting. Each page depicts circumstances familiar to children, ones that call forth emotions both pleasant and unpleasant. Truthful, charming and reassuring, this book invites one-on-one discussion.

C is For Curious: An ABC of Feelings
By Woodleigh Hubbard.
Chronicle Books; ISBN: 0877016798
$13.95, Ages 3 - 6

The title of this handsome picture book is appropriate. The characters, animals with bumpy profiles and expressive faces and tails, are very curious indeed. In opaque, bold colors, the actions of Hubbard's animals depict various emotional states from angry through zealous. The book is best savored by two readers - the lap-provider can help the lap-sitter understand and identify varying emotions.

Dear Daddy
By Philippe Dupasquier
Puffin, ISBN 0140508228
Out of Print - Available at local libraries, Ages 3 - 8

Working and playing through the changing seasons, a small girl, her baby brother, and her mother are amusingly depicted from the same birds-eye view of their house and yard. While their activities are shown on the lower portion of the pages, the life her father is leading aboard a freighter is depicted in a strip of pictures across the top. The linkage between them is provided by brief letters in the narrator's voice, which form the text. Imbued with a sense of the slow passage of time, this book humorously teaches children that absent parents have lives simultaneous to their own. Letters can serve as connections until the joyful reunion.

Sam the Minuteman
George the Drummer Boy
By Nathaniel Benchley, Illustrated by Arnold Lobel
HarperTrophy; ISBN: 0064441075
Ages 4 - 8

Americans are used to identifying with the Minutemen at the battles of Lexington and Concord which started the American Revolution. Sam the Minuteman is a farmer's young son who goes with his father to face the Brits. George the Drummer Boy, however, marches with the Brits into these battles, and he goes without so much as a gun. Both boys express the gamut of emotions experiences by soldiers before, during, and after battles. Excellent for discussion, Benchley's "easy-to-read" stories show the humanity of soldiers.