Research Guides: Mental Health in Children's and Young Adult Literature: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

About Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

"Traumatic events, such as military combat, assault, an accident or a natural disaster, can have long-lasting negative effects. Sometimes our biological responses and instincts, which can be life-saving during a crisis, leave people with ongoing psychological symptoms because they are not integrated into consciousness, known as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Some of these symptoms include intrusive memories and flashbacks of the event, avoidance, dissociation, or hypervigilance."

- National Alliance on Mental Illness

Picture Books

Why Is Dad So Mad? by
Seth Kastle
Call Number: Not in our collection.
Publication Date: 2015
A story for children in military families whose father battles with combat related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Why Are You So Scared? by
Beth Andrews
Call Number: Not in our collection.
Publication Date: 2011
"Kids that have a parent with PTSD can often feel confused, scared, or helpless. Why Are You so Scared? explains PTSD and its symptoms in nonthreatening, kid-friendly language, and is full of questions and exercises that kids and parents can work through together."

Books for Tweens

Soldier's Heart by
Gary Paulsen
Call Number: Y PAU
Publication Date: 1998
"Eager to enlist, fifteen-year-old Charley has a change of heart after experiencing both the physical horrors and mental anguish of Civil War combat."
Miracle by
Elizabeth Scott
Call Number: Y SCO
Publication Date: 2012
"Rising senior and star soccer player Megan Hathaway, unable to remember the plane crash of which she was the sole survivor, feels like an empty shell and loses all interest in her life and her friends."
The Madman of Piney Woods by
Christopher Paul Curtis
Call Number: Y CUR
Publication Date: 2016
"Even though it is now 1901, the people of Buxton, Canada (originally a settlement of runaway slaves) and Chatham, Canada are still haunted by two events of half a century before--the American Civil War, and the Irish potato famine, and the lasting damage those events caused to the survivors."

Books for Teens

The Impossible Knife of Memory by
Laurie Halse Anderson
Call Number: Y AND
Publication Date: 2014
"For the past five years, Hayley Kincaid and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Back in the town where he grew up, Hayley can attend school and maybe have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories."
The Freak Observer by
Blythe Woolston
Call Number: Y WOO
Publication Date: 2010
"Loa Sollilja's world ran like one of those mechanical models of the solar system, with her baby sister, Asta, as the sun. Asta suffered from a genetic disorder that left her a permanent infant, and caring for her was Loa's life. But now Asta's dead, and 16-year-old Loa's clockwork galaxy has collapsed. As Loa spins off on her own, her mind ambushes her with a textbook case of PTSD."
Afterward by
Jennifer Mathieu
Call Number: Y MAT
Publication Date: 2016
"When eleven-year-old Dylan Anderson is kidnapped, his subsequent rescue leads to the discovery of Ethan Jorgensen, who had disappeared four years earlier, and now Dylan's sister Caroline befriends Ethan and wants to learn the truth about her autistic brother's captivity. But due to his years of trauma, many of Ethan's memories are blocked."
Eli the Good by
Silas House
Call Number: Y HOU
Publication Date: 2009
"In Kentucky in the summer of 1976, ten-year-old Eli Book's excitement over Bicentennial celebrations is tempered by his father's flashbacks to the Vietnam War and other family problems, as well as concern about his tough but troubled best friend, Edie."
I'll Meet You There by
Heather Demetrios
Call Number: Y DEM
Publication Date: 2015
"Skylar Evans, seventeen, yearns to escape Creek View by attending art school, but after her mother's job loss puts her dream at risk, a rekindled friendship with Josh, who joined the Marines to get away then lost a leg in Afghanistan, and her job at the Paradise motel lead her to appreciate her home town."
Marked by
Jenny Martin
Call Number: Not in our collection.
Publication Date: 2016
"Fugitive Phee has been safe in the rebel camp after an escape gone wrong. But villanous tyrant King Charlie is getting bolder in his attacks against the rebellion, and Phee is trying to cope with PTSD and is trying to find her place in the resistance and in the lives of the two men she cares for. Phee and her team embark on a daring mission to end the war, but no one is prepared for the sacrifices they will have to make." Sequel to Tracked.
Finding My Way: A Teen's Guide to Living with a Parent who has Experienced Trauma by
Michelle Sherman; DeAnne M Sherman
Call Number: Not in our collection.
Publication Date: 2005
"This is a three-part book that honestly and gently addresses key issues in dealing with a parent who has experienced trauma."
Something Like Normal by
Trish Doller
Call Number: Not in our collection.
Publication Date: 2012
"When Travis returns home from Afghanistan, his parents are splitting up, his brother has stolen his girlfriend and car, and he has nightmares of his best friend getting killed but when he runs into Harper, a girl who has despised him since middle school, life actually starts looking up."
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by
Michelle Hodkin
Call Number: Not in our collection.
Publication Date: 2012
"Seventeen-year-old Mara cannot remember the accident that took the lives of three of her friends but, after moving from Rhode Island to Florida, finding love with Noah, and more deaths, she realizes uncovering something buried in her memory might save her family and her future." Book 1 in the series.

Mental Health in Children's and Young Adult Literature

About Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Picture Books

Books for Tweens

Books for Teens

More Resources