WOW Dozen: Difficult and Challenging Topics in Children's Literature
While teaching a graduate course on the art of picturebooks this past semester, I realized that there has been an influx of children's books on challenging topics. This piqued my curiosity, and I began digging into the stacks at the Worlds of Words and online. While I found many recent titles about anxiety, depression, death, and grandparents who are growing older, I also thought of books that would pair nicely and help ease the acceptance of these hard topics. Needless to say, picturebooks have never been simple and mono-dimensional and it is there power to speak to the youngest of our audiences, giving them strength.
A young boy is going through a hardship and digs a tunnel to the outside, but when he sees his mom through a window he decides to return home.
A child goes out of his home but is assailed with uncertainty and is rendered voiceless.
A dark cloud follows a little girl everywhere and as she learns to control her feelings the cloud shrinks in size.
When her father is in the hospital, Zoe finds solace in the company of a friend who invites her to swim around the world in their imagination.
This graphic text visually tells the story of a child’s inner fears such as anxiety over grades, peer or parental pressure.
This sensitively written story speaks to a child’s actions, reactions and acceptance of a grandmothers’ assisted death also known as medical assistance in dying MAiD during her last week of life.
This story is about a fox who finds a dead bird and with the help of a moth, learns the meaning of death.
A warm and thoughtful story about a girl who learns to remember her grandmother through her memories and actions.
Grandpa alters known stories and makes them different and more enticing even though his granddaughter wants him to tell them correctly.
A young boy learns from his grandfather about birds, gardening, cooking and art, even though he is a war refugee and has never gone to school.
Ali’s grandma seems to be forgetting so he helps her remember by showing her old pictures of her life.
When grandma suffers a stroke her granddaughter helps the grown-ups understand her mixed up speech.
WOW Dozen features a list of 12 global books for children and adolescents around a theme, topic, issue or personal favorites. Each Dozen consists of ten newly-published titles with two older "must have" books. Please share or recommend additional books that fit the theme in the comments section or on social media using #WOWDozen. Use the printer icon in the upper left corner of this post to print or save this list as a PDF.
