Books
When you see yourself in someone else's story, you feel less alone.
Books about parenting and mental health are everywhere, and there are new ones coming out all the time. Here are lists of books we've found most helpful in our own parenting experiences.
You'll also find books about mental health for kids. They may come in handy as you talk to your children about mental health and help them understand their own feelings.
If you don't see what you are looking for here, try this list of 75 Children's Books About Mental Health provided by the Child Mind Institute.
Parenting All Ages
• 8 Setbacks That Can Make a Child a Success
• 14 Talks by Age Fourteen
• Anxious Kids: Anxious Parents
• Boy Without Instructions: Surviving the Learning Curve of Parenting a Child with ADHD
• Children, Technology and Healthy Development: How to Help Kids be Safe and Thrive Online
• How to Raise an Adult
• Permission to Feel
• Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child
• Rescuing Our Sons: 8 Solutions to our Crisis of Disaffected Teen Boys
• Siblings Without Rivalry
• The Blessing of a Skinned Knee
• The Explosive Child
• The No Worries Guide to Raising Your Anxious Child
• The Power of Showing Up
• The Explosive Child
• The Self-Driven Child
• The Whole Brain Child
• What Do You Say?
Parenting Young Children
Children & Depression
• Meh
• The Princess and the Fog
• The Energy Bus for Kids
• A Kids Book About Depression
Children & Self-Acceptance
• Happiness Doesn't Come From Headstands
• Perfectly Norman
• The Secret Words
• I'm Gonna Like Me
• I am Enough
• A Bad Case of Stripes
• Spoon
• It's Okay To Make Mistakes
• It's Okay: Being Kind to Yourself When Things Feel Hard
• My Heart
• Nothing's Wrong: A Hare, A Bear and Some Pie to Share
• It Was Supposed to Be Sunny
• Right Now, I Am Kind
• You Should, You Should
• Beware the Blue Bagoo
Books for Teens
• Absolutely Normal Short Stories that Smash Mental Health Stereotypes
• Brave: A Teen Girl's Guide to Beating Worry and Anxiety
• Can I Catch it Like a Cold: Coping with a Parents Depression
• Challenger Deep
• Dear Student
• Finding Audrey
• Good Different
• Highly Illogical Behavior
• Made You Up
• More Happy Than Not
• Mosquitoland
• Some Kind of Happiness
• The Rest of Us Just Live Here
• We Are All So Good at Smiling
Books for Adults
• Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life
• Heavy: An American Memoir
• The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
• An Unquiet Mind By: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
• What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
• Lost Connections: Why You're Depressed and How to Find Hope
• The Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook
• The Highly Sensitive Person
• De-Escalate: How to Calm an Angry Person in 90 Seconds or Less
• Breathwork: How to Use Your Breath to Change Your Life
CATCH Criteria
How do we decided what to recommend?
We read it ourselves! Every resource we feature on our website is vetted by a CATCH board member or volunteer.