To acknowledge European Mental Health Week 2024, Vision Ireland’s Book Bridge Project has converted a number of acclaimed Children’s book resources into braille and audio formats. These deal with a variety of emotional health topics.
Parents & children should be easily able to access high-quality information, guidance, and support to enable them to manage the impact of life’s challenges, transitions, and emotional issues on their lives. However, the availability of such resources in accessible formats for both blind and visually impaired children and their parents is minimal.
Bibliotherapy is the use of books for therapeutic purposes. Bibliotherapy is a proven means of helping individuals understand the issues they are experiencing, normalises those experiences, and offering hope for positive change. Reading to children is central to their development. Books provide a safe medium for children to explore different concepts, feelings, and attitudes while allowing them to better understand their environment, community, and societal expectations. Reading to children increases self-esteem, gives comfort, and may aid children in coping with difficult situations.
This project centres around the conversion of existing bibliotherapy resources for children and their parents into braille and audio versions, to enable them to be accessed by those living with a visual impairment. Vision Ireland aims to combine their own expertise in Library resources in combination with our Counselling and Wellbeing department to assist children and parents on topics of loss, bereavement, bullying, suicide, medical issues, and trauma.
Hunter’s Best Friend at School
Overview: A charming picture book about two raccoons and the joys and perils of first friendship.
Hunter and Stripe are best friends. This young raccoon pair loves to do everything together, like dress in striped sweaters, read the same stories, and even eat the same lunch–a crawfish sandwich, huckleberries, and milk. But when Stripe arrives one day at school in a mischief-making mood and starts stirring up trouble in Mr. Ringtail’s class, should Hunter follow along?
Laura Malone Elliott and Lynn Munsinger introduce two delightful pals who will entertain young children as they also provide an important look at peer pressure and first friendships.
The Huge Bag of Worries
Overview: A reassuring picture book encouraging children to open up about their fears and anxieties to help manage their feelings. The perfect book to soothe worries during stressful times. Wherever Jenny goes, her worries follow her – in a big blue bag. They are with her all the time – at school, at home, when she is watching TV and even in the bathroom! Jenny decides they have to go, but who will help her get rid of them? A funny and reassuring look at dealing with worries and anxiety, to be used as a spring board into important conversations with your child.
Grumpy Monkey Series
Grumpy Monkey is the first title in a series of books targeted at different ages that encourage kids to feel their feelings. The topics covered range from picky eating to social anxiety and impatience.
Book #1:Grumpy Monkey
Summary
A hilarious picture book about dealing with unexplained feelings…and the danger in suppressing them! Jim the chimpanzee is in a terrible mood for no good reason. His friends can’t understand it—how can he be in a bad mood when it’s SUCH a beautiful day? They encourage him not to hunch, to smile, and to do things that make THEM happy. But Jim can’t take all the advice…and has a BIT of a meltdown. Could it be that he just needs a day to feel grumpy? Suzanne and Max Lang bring hilarity and levity to this very important lesson. This picture book is an excellent case study in the dangers of putting on a happy face and demonstrates to kids that they are allowed to feel their feelings (though they should be careful of hurting others in the process!).
Book #2:Grumpy Monkey Party Time!
Summary
Everyone’s favourite New York Times bestselling Grumpy Monkey is back in this hilarious sequel about managing social anxiety and listening to your needs! Have you ever been a little anxious about going to a party? Jim Panzee feels that. Porcupine is having a big party, and according to Jim’s best friend Norman, there will be–gulp–dancing. Jim can DEFINITELY not dance. When he tells his friends, they all try to teach him cool moves–surely that’s the only reason Jim isn’t excited about this party! Now, their job complete, the other animals sweep Jim along, all the way to the dance floor. Jim is dipped, swayed, and twirled until he can’t take it anymore–he just doesn’t like to dance! When he lets everyone know, he’s met with disbelief…until Water Buffalo reveals that he doesn’t much care to dance, either. As more and more animals have the courage to speak their truths, does this mean there’s no place for them at this party? In this hilarious sequel to GRUMPY MONKEY, kids will learn that it’s okay not to go with the flow if they’re uncomfortable, and that speaking up about what they need can help others speak up, too–and maybe they need the same thing!
Details of all the books can be found here: https://bookroo.com/books/series/grumpy-monkey
Vision Ireland’s Library Access Service has produced hard copies of Braille and human-narrated audio copies for loan of :
Hunter’s Best Friend at School
The Huge Bag of Worries
The Grumpy Monkey Series is available to download from our Library’s Bookshare Ireland platform in the following accessible formats ( Word, EPUB3, DAISY, Audio, Braille Ready File(BRF).
The above formats are compatible with Assistive Technology and the Free Easyreader App.
To discuss accessing any of these resources please contact: [email protected]
The Book Bridge Project is a joint venture between Vision Ireland’s Counselling, Wellbeing & Emotional Support Service and our Library Access Services. It has been made possible by generous funding from the Hospital Saturday Fund.