My Anxious Mind: A Teen's Guide to Managing Anxiety and Panic

School Library Journal

Gr 8–10—Tompkins and Martinez directly address their readers: "If you have an anxious mind…," giving teens the sense of a caring adult speaking to them. While many self-help books can be read in any order, this one is progressive and should be read in sequence. Following the first chapters on definitions and how to seek help, there are several chapters with increasingly more complicated aids that teens can implement. Beginning with relaxing and moving through decoding "self-talk" to building a fear ladder, each step is slightly more complex and takes a more serious approach. The final chapters stress the importance of proper nutrition, exercise, and sleep, and the possible need for medication. Throughout the book, first-person vignettes describe specific anxieties or phobias and how they were dealt with using the strategies outlined in the middle chapters. It is not clear if these are real teens who have written these vignettes or if the examples given are composites of teens the authors have worked with. In either case, they serve the purpose, along with the appealing line drawings, of catching readers' interest and enlivening the text.—Wendy Smith-D'Arezzo, Loyola College, Baltimore, MD