Welcome to the Children in Trauma Bibliography.
This bibliography was created by Dr. Megan McCaffrey, Assistant Professor, Division of Education, Governors State University.
The LibGuide was built by Linda Geller, Associate Professor, University Library, Governors State University.
This project was generously funded by a 2019 Carnegie-Whitney Grant through the American Library Association.
Need
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as poverty, parental imprisonment, encounters with violence, or a family member’s death can negatively affect a child’s long term development and health. The amount of adverse childhood experiences which occur in the United States should be understood to be significant and traumatically impacts the well-being of our nation’s children. According to Bethell, Simpson, and Solloway (2017) 48% of children in a 2011-12 National Survey of Children’s Health experienced at least one traumatic event during their life.
Childhood trauma as a result of ACEs can impact a child’s ability to reach optimal health and thus should be of high importance to those who routinely interact with them. Teachers, parents, counselors, and others interacting with children that had an ACEs need resources to aid them in helping children cope. One way of helping these children is by sharing books they can personally connect. In this case, stories of others who have also experienced ACEs and the ways in which they coped with the event is a connection many children need. This project aims to provide a selective bibliographic resource for teachers, parents, counselors, and others interacting with ACEs children so that they may have a resource. A need exists for this type of resource in order to help children cope with the impact of ACEs that this project aims to fill.
Reading, particularly fiction, is known to have healing powers; it allows a reader to connect with a character’s experience (Szente, 2016). Bishop (1990) used the metaphor of “mirrors” and “windows” to describe a student’s need to use literature as a mirror to see themselves and as a window to view others (p. ix). For this project, the bibliography is meant to aid adults working with children affected by ACES (Maich & Kean, 2004; Tussing and Valentine, 2001) have a resource. This resource will provide a means for those adults to locate literature children can see themselves. This bibliography will create a list of fictional picture books for use with elementary age children who had an ACEs.
Connecting children with children’s literature offers them the opportunity to learn coping skills. By reading books with engaging and authentic fictional characters who successfully deal with a multitude of affective ailments. Children can identify ways to live more productively and feel connected by viewing characters with similar experiences. A characters’ problem in a book can support a child’s understanding of their experience in relation to healing in their own lives. The practice of connecting books to children with specific traumatic needs help them better understand themselves, realize they are not alone, and find hope in their situation (Hames & Pedreira, (2003). Hence, creating an annotated bibliography with authentic children’s literature that services adults working with children affected by a traumatic event is invaluable.
Purpose
This project aims to provide a bibliography resource for teachers, parents, counselors, and others interacting with children that had ACEs. As statistics indicate, there is a need for assistance in the area of resources to help children cope with the impact of tragedy. Books are one means of having children feel connected to others, and experience another individual’s process of coping with a traumatic event. Reading can connect children emotional with characters which is the primary goal of this grant, though reading will also provide children with other additional affective benefits of readings such as active civic engagement, healthier lifestyle, examples of empathy
Audience and Why
The target audience includes users interested in scholarly works that discuss the needs of youth dealing with trauma. This bibliography will be easily discoverable by search engines so it would appeal to researchers across a wide field, from students writing paper to researchers. Other users are librarians, teachers, counselors, caregivers, and parents of children seeking this type of resource to benefit their well-being.
Books in the bibliography have been listed in six thematic groups on the left menu.
Clicking on a group opens a box where books are listed under individual themes.
