The Drug Endangered Children’s Initiative has received a grant from South Shore Community Partners in Prevention to create a small digital and lending library at the United Way of Greater Plymouth County’s Family Center in Brockton.  Planning for the library project included soliciting suggested book titles from our community partners, which we’ve begun to read and evaluate. Here are some of our favorites so far:

A Boy Like You  written by Frank Murphy and illustrated by Kayla Harren is a 2020 nominee for the Amelia Bloomer List and 2019 winner of the  Eureka! Gold Award for nonfiction children’s books from the California Reading Association. From Publisher’s Weekly:  "The world needs a boy like you," Murphy writes assuredly as a boy is shown standing out from a variably diverse crowd. Encouraging readers to contribute positively to the world around them, Harren's images show the boy sitting "with the new kid," recycling a bottle, telling a passerby he's dropped his wallet, and expressing himself in healthy ways (looking into adulthood, the boy imagines himself in different professions, including construction worker, artist, and teacher). Being brave means sometimes being afraid, Murphy asserts, and asking for help and not being afraid to cry are also signs of strength. The story is directed squarely at boys, but Harren's illustrations show representations of all kinds of kids and families. Being a boy can mean many things, Murphy suggests, but being "a smart boy, a brave boy, a kind boy" are the first important steps toward manhood.". For ages pre-school and up.

Hey, Kiddo written and illustrated by Jarret Krosoczka, the best-selling author of several picture books, Jedi Academy and the Lunch Lady graphic novels. This graphic memoir, for ages 12 to 18, is the honest and nuanced story of Krosoczka’s childhood. Raised by his grandparents because his mother struggled with opioid use disorder, Krosoczka’s family looked different from his friends’. His grandparents nurtured his artistic talents with drawing lessons at the Worcester Art Museum, an important contributing factor for his successful career as an author and illustrator. Hey, Kiddo is a story of resilience and prevention that will resonate with many teens, but especially those being raised by grandparents, those who love drawing and those with substance use in their family.  

In My Heart: A Book of Feelings written by Jo Witek and illustrated by Christine Roussey for ages pre-school and up. From School Library Journal: “Although this picture book exploration of feelings takes a similar list-and-describe approach to that of Jamie Lee Curtis's Today I Feel Silly: And Other Moods That Make My Day (HarperCollins, 2007) and Dr. Seuss's My Many-Colored Days (Knopf, 1998), don't count that against it. The approach still works, especially when the feelings evoked have such child-friendly imagery ("My heart is yelling, hot and loud," the child narrator explains). The book pairs brief verbal explorations of emotions with evocative imagery, popping with bright colors against the effectively used white background. Throughout the representative illustrations—a bright yellow star to represent happiness, an elephant to represent sadness, a silhouette of the Big Bad Wolf to represent fear—a series of heart cutouts, ever decreasing in size, appears on the pages, until the heroine is able to find her feelings everywhere.” —Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD

The Invisible Boy written by Trudy Ludwig and illustrated by Patrice Barton. Ludwig is a nationally acclaimed speaker and an award-winning author who specializes in writing children's books that help kids cope with and thrive in their social world, including My Secret Bully and Confessions of a Former Bully. For ages pre-school and up. From Booklist: For the first half of Ludwig’s picture book, a lonesome-looking boy appears rendered in gray and white. Even the teacher has no time for “invisible” Brian, as she is busy dealing with the noisy children in her class. Brian, with his big glasses and toothy smile, gets his hopes dashed when he isn’t picked for the kickball team. He finds solace in his drawings, where fire-breathing dragons scale tall buildings and superheroes have the power to make friends. When new student Justin arrives, Brian befriends him when the others don’t, and they become buddies and even add a third boy to become a trio. Now visible in glorious color, Brian and his new friends present a project to their newly appreciative classmates. The joyful last pages show Brian with the children playing happily in real and imaginary activities. Brian’s childlike drawings, done in ink and collage, are spot-on in representing the way children depict their imaginary world and their very real feelings. “Questions for Discussion” in the back matter provide guidelines for teachers and parents. Preschool-Grade 2. --Lolly Gepson

One of Those Days written by Amy Krouse and illustrated by Rebecca Doughty. From School Library Journal: Pre-school to grade 2. Rosenthal enumerates ways in which a child's happiness can be squelched by a rotten day. The array of mishaps includes sibling and friendship problems, disappointing birthdays, itchy clothing, misplaced belongings, and self-doubt. Each unwelcome incident warrants a special designation. There's a Keep Spilling Stuff Day, a Nobody's Listening To You Day, a Gutter Ball Day, and a Not Big Enough Day. This succinct book is not a story but an imaginative list of calamities that culminates predictably with the promise that all bad days lead to a new dawn. The angst of the characters is rendered effectively through the partnership of Rosenthal's words and Doughty's cartoons, reminiscent of her illustrations in Harriet Ziefert's 39 Uses for a Friend (2001) and 31 Uses for a Mom (2003, both Putnam). The format of this humorous book will serve as an excellent springboard for students trying their own hands at writing about one of those days. Gloria Koster, West School, New Canaan, CT

The Drug Endangered Children’s Initiative is grateful to all community partners who shared their favorite book titles with us, especially Joanne Peterson from Learn to Cope  and Gina Williams from East Bridgewater Public Schools for these suggestions. We look forward to discovering and sharing more resources in the new year, please comment with your favorites.