Anxiety can be debilitating, especially for children.
Here’s a collection of middle grade books exploring anxiety: what it is, the forms it can take, how to cope and how to grow from it.
And while these books are curated for children, I think they’re perfect for adults to read to calm their inner child, too.
You’ll find links to my Amazon and Bookshop affiliate stores below. Thanks for your bookish support!
Izzy Kline Has Butterflies by Beth Ain
Izzy Kline lives in all of us. She’s a forth grade student with butterfly problems: all sorts of life challenges that cause butterflies to rumble around in her stomach. Her parents are newly divorced, her friendships are changing and her school is putting on a play of Free to Be…You and Me. Told in beautiful and compelling verse, we feel what Izzy feels and understand her emotions…because we’ve likely experienced them, too. Whether you’re a middle grade reading relating to Izzy firsthand or an adult reader soothing you’re inner child, this book will give you what you need and remind you that butterflies might feel like trouble, but good things can result from them, too.
The Thing I'm Most Afraid Of by Kristin Levine
This story opens with a bang: Becca, a 12-year old dealing with anxiety attacks is traveling from her home in Virginia to spend the Summer with her father in Austria while her supportive, yet free-spirited, mother prepares to backpack across Europe in her absence. Levine so beautifully invites us into Becca’s mind, not only helping us feel what it’s like to be anxious, but actually showing the reader how to get through it. She invites us into the lives of Felix and Sara, putting complex feelings and life challenges into simple facts that inspire courage, connection and confidence. From the bugs in the Goulash and happy chickens to the list-making and Doomsday and Pig Journals, every reader will find a piece of themselves in this book, child AND adult, a piece of themselves that will feel just a bit stronger for having read this book. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m starting a Pig Journal of my own.
Finding Perfect by Elly Swartz
Finding Perfect was the perfect name for this book: it’s the perfect middle grade novel and spoke right to my heart. Twelve-year-old Molly is dealing with a lot: her parents recently separated and her mother moved to Canada for a year to work. She’s hoping that winning her school’s poetry slam will bring her mother back home to celebrate at the big banquet. But as time passes, Molly is having a harder time dealing with the stresses in her life and new habits take over: counting, washing, organizing and measuring compete for her attention and start to win. As Molly starts to unravel, she finally realizes that telling someone, somehow, is the only thing left to do. I wish this book was available for my childhood self, but it helped heal the adult version, too.
Guts by Raina Telgemeier
I have always felt like books were my friends and as I’ve grown, I now understand the even larger role they play in shaping the kind of life I want to live. I read books to celebrate new phases of my life, to seek help from the plot twists in the pages for the plot twists in my own life and understand the power they have to impact the way we live. This book was a powerful one and one that I wished was published when I was a child and needed it most. I could literally see and feel the anxiety Raina felt throughout her childhood and the message was still impactful as an adult. I plan to share this with my own children and make it required reading in my graduate education classes for both the powerful message/lessons and the beauty of the graphic novel.
Sidetracked by Diana Harmon Asher
If I am completely honest, the tremendous shifts that we’ve all been facing during the pandemic have been causing just a teensy-bit of anxiety. =) I see it in myself, in my children and in the teachers and students that I work with. And when I have a challenge, I turn to books. I’ve been gathering books to support teachers and students with feelings of anxiety and Sidetracked by Diana Harmon Asher was just the book I needed. Just as I hoped, the main character, Joseph Friedman, taught me a thing or two about how to navigate an overactive mind, multiple phobias and day to day anxieties. Beautifully told from the point of view of a middle school boy, Asher reminds us what it is like to feel uncomfortable in our own skin….and what it’s like to push through hard things again and again until one day something unexpected might remind you that you’re exactly who you’re meant to be.
The Goldfish Boy by Lisa Thompson
Matthew Corbin suffers from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. He hasn’t been to school in weeks. His hands are cracked and bleeding from cleaning. He refuses to leave his bedroom. To pass the time, he observes his neighbors from his bedroom window, making mundane notes about their habits as they bustle about the cul-de-sac.
When a toddler staying next door goes missing, it becomes apparent that Matthew was the last person to see him alive. Suddenly, Matthew finds himself at the center of a high-stakes mystery, and every one of his neighbors is a suspect. Matthew is the key to figuring out what happened and potentially saving a child’s life… but is he able to do so if it means exposing his own secrets, and stepping out from the safety of his home?
Center of Gravity by Shaunta Grimes
Tessa is an anxious person, but it’s become worse since her mother died a few months ago. To calm herself down she cuts out photos of missing kids–from milk cartons–and keeps them in a file. It helps her feel like she’s not alone.
When her dad announces suddenly that he’s getting married–and that they’re moving, Tessa must navigate new friendships and a new stepmother. She knows she should let go of old habits, but that’s easier said than done. Her struggle is one that many readers will understand.
Counting by 7s Holly Goldberg Sloan
Willow Chance is a twelve-year-old genius, obsessed with nature and diagnosing medical conditions, who finds it comforting to count by 7s. It has never been easy for her to connect with anyone other than her adoptive parents, but that hasn’t kept her from leading a quietly happy life…until now.
Suddenly Willow’s world is tragically changed when her parents both die in a car crash, leaving her alone in a baffling world. The triumph of this book is that it is not a tragedy. This extraordinarily odd, but extraordinarily endearing, girl manages to push through her grief. Her journey to find a fascinatingly diverse and fully believable surrogate family is a joy and a revelation to read.
The Summer of June by Jamie Sumner
Twelve-year-old June Delancey is kicking summer off with a bang. She shaves her head and sets two goals: she will beat her anxiety and be the lion she knows she can be, instead of the mouse everyone sees. And she and her single mama will own their power as fierce, independent females.
With the help of Homer Juarez, the poetry-citing soccer star who believes in June even when she doesn’t believe in herself, she starts a secret library garden and hatches a plan to make her dreams come true. But when her anxiety becomes too much, everything begins to fall apart. It’s going to take more than a haircut and some flowers to set things right. It’s going to take courage and friends and watermelon pie. Forget second chances. This is the summer of new beginnings.
