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Today, traditional illnesses and high risk behaviors of adolescents have become interrelated through the multitude of physical, social and emotional changes young people experience. Good literature which gives adolescents the truth has incredible power to heal and to renew. This reference resource provides a link for teachers, media specialists, parents, and other adults to those novels that can help adolescents struggling with health issues. Educators and therapists explore novels where common health issues are addressed in ways to captivate teens. Using fictional characters, these experts provide guidance on encouraging adolescents to cope while improving their reading and writing skills.
With the advancement in medicine, traditional types of health issues such as birth defects, cancer, and sensory impairment have shifted to more behavior related problems such as depression, alcoholism, and eating disorders. All of these issues and others are examined from both a literary and psychological perspective in thirteen chapters that explore health issues through fiction. Each chapter confronts a different health issue and is written by a literature specialist who has teamed up with a therapist. In each novel, these experts define the central character's struggle in coming to terms with an issue and growing in response to their difficulties. Annotated bibliographies of other works, both fiction and nonfiction, explore these same issues give readers insight into helping teenagers with similar problems, and provide the tools with which to get teenagers reading and addressing these problems.
List of contents
Series Foreword
Foreword
Freak the Mighty: Birth Defects and Disability in a Literary Friendship by Kathleen Carico and Paula Stanley
Izzy, Willy-Nilly: Issues of Disability for Adolescents and Their Families by Cynthia Ann Bowman and Phyllis A. Gordon
Bridging the Alone Space: Fiction for Young People with Sensory Impairments by Kim McCullum-Clark and Kelsey Backels
Tracking Adolescents Responses to Cancer by Jim Powell and Nancy Lafferty
Normalcy Was All She Wanted: LEarning to Live with Diabetes by Sue F. Johnson and Claire J. Dandeneau
Focusing Our Attention: Reading about ADHD by A. Lee Williams and Albert Scott
The Friends: Promoting Adolescent Mental Health through Awareness and Literature by Karen L. Ford and Charlene Alexander
The Craziness Within and the Craziness Without: Depression and Anger in Ironman by John Noell Moore and David William Hartman
Dying to be Thin: Eating Disorders in Young Adult Literature by Patricia P. Kelly and Marshall D. Tessnear
Reading Anorexia in Nell's Quilt by Nancy Mellin McCracken and Jan Carli
Conquering Alcoholism in Imitate the Tiger by Margaret Ford and Danna Bozick
HIV/AIDS: What You Don't Know Can Kill You by Nancy Prosenjak, Laura Sullivan and Diane Hartman
Going Backwards: A Family Systems View of Alzheimer's by Joyce Graham and Scott Johnson
About the author
CYNTHIA ANN BOWMAN is Assistant Professor of English Education at Florida State University./e She is Chair of the CEE Commission for the Preparation of Teachers with Disabilities.
