Book picks similar to
Guess What? Dear Diary, by Cherrye S. Vasquez


social-issues
counselling
kids-matter
resilience

Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness


Melissa Dahl - 2018
    After a lifetime of cringing, she became intrigued by awkwardness: a universal but underappreciated emotion. In this witty and compassionate book, Dahl explores the oddest, cringiest corners of our world. She chats with strangers on the busy New York City subway, goes on awkward friend dates using a Tinder-for-friendship app, takes improv comedy lessons, and even reads aloud from her (highly embarrassing!) middle school diary to a crowd of strangers.After all of that, she realizes: Awkward moments are opportunities to test yourself. When everyone else is pretending to have it under control, you can be a little braver and grow a little bigger--while remaining true to your awkward self. And along the way, you might find that awkward moments unite us in our mutual human ridiculousness.

Care of Mind/Care of Spirit: A Psychiatrist Explores Spirtual Direction


Gerald G. May - 1992
    For millions turning for answers to the world of the spirit, May shows how psychiatry and spiritual direction are alike, how they complement one another, and how they ultimately diverge.

The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss


Amy Noelle Parks - 2020
    Because he is her best friend, and he loves her, and he has almost kissed her 17 times... Seventeen-year-old Evie Beckham has never been interested in dating. She's been fully occupied by her love of mathematics and her frequent battles with anxiety (and besides, she's always found the idea of kissing to be a little bit icky). But with the help of her best friend and her therapist, Evie's feeling braver. Maybe even brave enough to enter a prestigious physics competition and to say yes to the new boy who's been flirting with her. Caleb Covic knows Evie isn't ready for romance but assumes that when she is, she will choose him. So Caleb is horrified when he is forced to witness Evie's meet cute with a floppy-haired, mathematically gifted transfer student. Because Caleb knows the girl never falls for the funny best friend when there's a mysterious stranger around, he decides to use an online forum to capture Evie's interest. Now, he's got Evie wondering if it's possible to fall in love with a boy she's never met. Told in the alternating voices of Evie and Caleb, THE QUANTUM WEIRDNESS OF THE ALMOST KISS is a YA romantic comedy, sure to satisfy fans of Jenny Han, Rainbow Rowell and Stephanie Perkins.

Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family


Amy Ellis Nutt - 2015
    But it wasn’t long before they noticed a marked difference between Jonas and his brother, Wyatt. Jonas preferred sports and trucks and many of the things little boys were “supposed” to like; but Wyatt liked princess dolls and dress-up and playing Little Mermaid. By the time the twins were toddlers, confusion over Wyatt’s insistence that he was female began to tear the family apart. In the years that followed, the Maineses came to question their long-held views on gender and identity, to accept and embrace Wyatt’s transition to Nicole, and to undergo an emotionally wrenching transformation of their own that would change all their lives forever.Becoming Nicole chronicles a journey that could have destroyed a family but instead brought it closer together. It’s the story of a mother whose instincts told her that her child needed love and acceptance, not ostracism and disapproval; of a Republican, Air Force veteran father who overcame his deepest fears to become a vocal advocate for trans rights; of a loving brother who bravely stuck up for his twin sister; and of a town forced to confront its prejudices, a school compelled to rewrite its rules, and a courageous community of transgender activists determined to make their voices heard. Ultimately, Becoming Nicole is the story of an extraordinary girl who fought for the right to be herself.Granted wide-ranging access to personal diaries, home videos, clinical journals, legal documents, medical records, and the Maineses themselves, Amy Ellis Nutt spent almost four years reporting this immersive account of an American family confronting an issue that is at the center of today’s cultural debate. Becoming Nicole will resonate with anyone who’s ever raised a child, felt at odds with society’s conventions and norms, or had to embrace life when it plays out unexpectedly. It’s a story of standing up for your beliefs and yourself—and it will inspire all of us to do the same.

Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus


Jennifer S. Hirsch - 2020
    Research has shown that by the time they graduate, as many as one in three women and almost one in six men will have been sexually assaulted. But why is sexual assault such a common feature of college life? And what can be done to prevent it? Drawing on the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT) at Columbia University, the most comprehensive study of sexual assault on a campus to date, Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan present an entirely new framework that emphasizes sexual assault’s social roots—transcending current debates about consent, predators in a “hunting ground,” and the dangers of hooking up.Sexual Citizens is based on years of research interviewing and observing college life—with students of different races, genders, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Hirsch and Khan’s landmark study reveals the social ecosystem that makes sexual assault so predictable, explaining how physical spaces, alcohol, peer groups, and cultural norms influence young people’s experiences and interpretations of both sex and sexual assault. Through the powerful concepts of “sexual projects,” “sexual citizenship,” and “sexual geographies,” the authors offer a new and widely-accessible language for understanding the forces that shape young people’s sexual relationships. Empathetic, insightful, and far-ranging, Sexual Citizens transforms our understanding of sexual assault and offers a roadmap for how to address it.

Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care about Has Borderline Personality Disorder


Paul T. Mason - 1998
    It is designed to help them understand how the disorder affects their loved ones and recognize what they can do to get off the emotional roller coasters and take care of themselves.

The teenage guide to dealing with stress


Nicola Morgan - 2014
    It also shows how to deal with and prevent the symptoms of stress.

Selecting Effective Treatments: A Comprehensive, Systematic Guide to Treating Mental Disorders


Linda Seligman - 1990
    This third edition includes the most current information and expands the understanding of pervasive developmental disorders, bipolar disorder, disorders of childhood, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and eating disorders. In addition, the book expands on the sections that deal with the treatment of depression, borderline personality disorder, and more. This important resource also includes new information on assessment, the treatment of dual diagnosis, the spectrum concept of mental disorders, suicide risk factors, and new approaches to treatment.

Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men


Leonard Sax - 2005
    From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago. The gender gap in college attendance and graduation rates has widened dramatically. While Emily is working hard at school and getting A’s, her brother Justin is goofing off. He’s more concerned about getting to the next level in his video game than about finishing his homework.Now, Dr. Leonard Sax delves into the scientific literature and draws on more than twenty years of clinical experience to explain why boys and young men are failing in school and disengaged at home. He shows how social, cultural, and biological factors have created an environment that is literally toxic to boys. He also presents practical solutions, sharing strategies which educators have found effective in re-engaging these boys at school, as well as handy tips for parents about everything from homework, to video games, to medication.

The Poverty Industry: The Exploitation of America's Most Vulnerable Citizens


Daniel L. Hatcher - 2016
    Foster care agencies team up with companies to take disability and survivor benefits from abused and neglected children. States and their revenue consultants use illusory schemes to siphon Medicaid funds intended for children and the poor into general state coffers. Child support payments for foster children and families on public assistance are converted into government revenue. And the poverty industry keeps expanding, leaving us with nursing homes and juvenile detention centers that sedate residents to reduce costs and maximize profit, local governments buying nursing homes to take the facilities federal aid while the elderly languish with poor care, and counties hiring companies to mine the poor for additional funds in modern day debtor's prisons.In The Poverty Industry, Daniel L. Hatcher shows us how state governments and their private industry partners are profiting from the social safety net, turning America's most vulnerable populations into sources of revenue. The poverty industry is stealing billions in federal aid and other funds from impoverished families, abused and neglected children, and the disabled and elderly poor. As policy experts across the political spectrum debate how to best structure government assistance programs, a massive siphoning of the safety net is occurring behind the scenes.In the face of these abuses of power, Hatcher offers a road map for reforms to realign the practices of human service agencies with their intended purpose, to prevent the misuse of public taxpayer dollars, and to ensure that government aid truly gets to those in need.

That Night


Amy Giles - 2018
    They slowly become friends and then something more, learning to heal and move forward together. But what does it mean to love after an unspeakable tragedy?

Building a Life Worth Living: A Memoir


Marsha M. Linehan - 2020
    "Because if you were, it would give all of us so much hope."Over the years, DBT had saved the lives of countless people fighting depression and suicidal thoughts, but Linehan had never revealed that her pioneering work was inspired by her own desperate struggles as a young woman. Only when she received this question did she finally decide to tell her story.In this remarkable and inspiring memoir, Linehan describes how, when she was eighteen years old, she began an abrupt downward spiral from popular teenager to suicidal young woman. After several miserable years in a psychiatric institute, Linehan made a vow that if she could get out of emotional hell, she would try to find a way to help others get out of hell too, and to build a life worth living. She went on to put herself through night school and college, living at a YWCA and often scraping together spare change to buy food. She went on to get her PhD in psychology, specializing in behavior therapy. In the 1980s, she achieved a breakthrough when she developed Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, a therapeutic approach that combines acceptance of the self and ways to change. Linehan included mindfulness as a key component in therapy treatment, along with original and specific life-skill techniques. She says, You can't think yourself into new ways of acting; you can only act yourself into new ways of thinking.Throughout her extraordinary scientific career, Marsha Linehan remained a woman of deep spirituality. Her powerful and moving story is one of faith and perseverance. Linehan shows, in Building a Life Worth Living, how the principles of DBT really work--and how, using her life skills and techniques, people can build lives worth living.

Competence at Work: Models for Superior Performance


Lyle M. Spencer - 1993
    Includes generic job models for entrepreneurs, technical professionals, salespeople, service workers and corporate managers. Defines JCA and describes in detail how to conduct JCA studies. Suggests future directions and uses for competency research.

Safe Is Not Enough: Better Schools for LGBTQ Students


Michael Sadowski - 2016
    Using examples from classrooms, schools, and districts across the country, Michael Sadowski identifies emerging practices such as creating an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum; fostering a whole-school climate that is supportive of LGBTQ students; providing adults who can act as mentors and role models; and initiating effective family and community outreach programs.   While progress on LGBTQ issues in schools remains slow, in many parts of the country schools have begun making strides toward becoming safer, more welcoming places for LGBTQ students. Schools typically achieve this by revising antibullying policies and establishing GSAs (gay-straight student alliances). But it takes more than a deficit-based approach for schools to become places where LGBTQ students can fulfill their potential. In Safe Is Not Enough, Michael Sadowski highlights how educators can make their schools more supportive of LGBTQ students’ positive development and academic success.

Healing ADD: The Breakthrough Program That Allows You to See and Heal the 6 Types of ADD


Daniel G. Amen - 2001
    A new approach to the nation's most common learning disorder identifies six types of Attention Deficit Disorder and provides guidelines for choosing the proper treatment regimen.