We’ve been blogging at STACKED for ten years now, meaning that we have a whole host of backlist posts worth highlighting periodically. Likewise, I’ve got a whole collection of things I’ve written at Book Riot and elsewhere around the web, and sometimes, rather than reinventing the wheel, it feels worthwhile to draw those pieces together in one centralized place. This is particularly the case when there’s a topic worth talking about that has been talked about extensively before.

A couple of years ago, I pooled together a post of links relating to horror and young adult horror, and today, in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, it feels like a good time to gather some of the best of my writing on mental health and wellness in one place.

I often get asked to talk about how it is gatekeepers, especially teachers and librarians, can be advocates for mental health for young people. The answer is being open and honest with them, both in your own experiences, as well as in your own weaknesses. It’s okay to talk with teens about bad mental health days, just as it’s okay to be open about not understanding something they may be experiencing and then offering up to them resources that may help them find the help they’re looking for. In some cases, it’s a matter of wanting to talk and get it out there, without any expectation of needing help or to be fixed (which can’t happen — we can lead people to tools, but management comes from each person individually).

One thing that’s always helpful, especially for young people, is to offer them books and reading resources that can help them develop the language and understanding of what life is like with a brain that sometimes works and sometimes, well, might not work. The books included on the lists below are excellent tools and resources for cracking open some of these challenging, but vital, conversations about mental health.

Please note that some of the older backlist posts here at STACKED might look a little weird or image may be strange. When we shifted web hosts a few years ago, going back through archives to update didn’t turn into a priority. Everything is readable, though!

 

Mental Health Book Resources and Guides

 

• 50 Must-Read YA Books About Mental Illness

 

• Comics about depression

 

• Excellent mental health books across all genres and styles

 

• 7 tips for reading if you struggle with your mental health

 

• The best teen books about depression

 

• Powerful and moving depression poems

 

• YA books about social anxiety

 

• 3 On A YA Theme: YA books about bipolar disorder

 

• On depression and learning to write through mental health challenges

 

• I published a book about mental health — and reckoned with my own history of anxiety and depression

 

• Learning to write your way into mental health clarity

 

• Mental health and teens of color (guest post by Patrice Caldwell)

 

• Read alikes to Netflix’s To The Bone for readers wanting to know more about eating disorders.

 

• Suicide and depression in teen books

 

• Mental illness in YA

 

• A roundup of your favorite mental health books

 

• Rachel M. Wilson on how mental illness is a minefield

 

• On the rise of suicide in YA

 

• Hilary T. Smith on mental health narratives and YA literature

 

 

Naturally, here’s a reminder of why I put together (Don’t) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start The Conversation About Mental Health, along with essay excerpts from the book by Shaun David Hutchinson, Adam Silvera, Victoria Schwab, and Nancy Kerrigan.