Books and resources to help process school shootings, grief, and death. Click the links below to jump to each section.
- Talking with Kids, Processing Grief and Trauma
- Books for Younger Kids About Scary News and Traumatic Events
- Books for Younger Kids About Grief and Death
- Books for Elementary and Middle School Kids Dealing with Grief, Anxiety and PTSD
- Nonfiction Books for Teens and Young Adults about Surviving Gun Violence, Grief and Social Justice
- Fiction Books for Teens and Young Adults including themes on Trauma, Survivor's Guilt and Mental Health
- Nonfiction, Psychology and Self-Help Books for Adults on Processing Grief and Trauma
The City of Madison also put together a resource page to help support the Madison Community in the wake of the Abundant Life Christian School tragedy that took place on Monday, December 16, 2024.
Talking with Kids, Processing Grief and Trauma
Talking to Children About Violence: Tips for Families and Educators (link to the National Association of School Psychologists Resource)
In this book, Dr. Robyn takes you through the whole spectrum of kids' curious questions, giving you the strategies and scripts to prepare you for life's most challenging conversations. That way your kids get age-appropriate information straight from you, their trusted source, rather than from peers, the media, or the internet. This is a is a vital resource for parents who value having honest, meaningful conversations with their kids. When you just can't find the right words, this book will be your guide to talking to your kids.
Just as death is inevitable, talking about death is an inevitable part of parenting. Dr. Elena Lister and Dr. Michael Schwartzman offer us the way to have conversations with children that are as much about life as they are about death--conversations that anyone who parents, teaches, or counsels children can have.
In a lifesaving guide for parents, Dr. Abigail Gewirtz shows how to use the most basic tool at your disposal--conversation--to give children real help in dealing with the worries, stress, and other negative emotions caused by problems in the world, from active shooter drills to climate change.
This is a series of conversation scripts--with actual dialogue, talking points, prompts, and insightful asides--that are each age-appropriate and centered around different issues. Along the way are tips about staying calm in an anxious world; the way children react to stress, and how parents can read the signs; and how parents can make sure that their own anxiety doesn't color the conversation.
Books for Younger Kids About Scary News and Traumatic Events
Miles wants to move away after his cousin Keisha is accidentally shot in their neighborhood park, but Keisha and Miles' father work with others to make their community a safer place. Includes reader's note with discussion questions and advice for caregivers.
Additional resources related to this book from the American Psychological Association
Ages 5-9
After Sherman sees something terrible happen, he becomes anxious and then angry, but when a counselor helps him talk about these emotions he feels better.
Ages 4-8
When devastating news rattles a young girl's community, her normally attentive parents and neighbors are suddenly exhausted and distracted. At school, her teacher tells the class to look for the helpers-the good people working to make things better in big and small ways. She wants more than anything to help in a BIG way, but maybe she can start with one small act of kindness instead ... and then another, and another.
Ages 4-8
Granddad helps Ava process her emotions surrounding a lockdown drill at school through companionship and creativity.
Ages 3-7
What to Do When the News Scares You provides a way to help children put scary events into perspective. And, if children start to worry or become anxious about things they’ve heard, there are ideas to help them calm down and cope.
Ages 7-10
Full of advice for children who may be worried about events in the news, this guide from best-selling author Dawn Huebner offers advice for having tough conversations with 6-12 year olds about world events such as natural disasters, terrorism and war. It addresses common questions and provides tools to calm fears.
Ages 6-12
Books for Younger Kids About Grief and Death
The book explains death and loss to a very young child in a simple and age-appropriate way.
Ages 2-5
Illustrations and brief text relate how a person might feel when they lose someone they love.
Ages 3-6
After losing the person in his life he loves more than anything, a young child holds onto a cape as a source of comfort and strength as he navigates the sadness and joy of his memories.
Ages 4-8
Sometimes a person we love dies. It can hurt, and it can be scary. Sesame Street friends reassure young readers that it's OK to grieve and there are ways to remember the ones they've lost.
Ages 4-8
When it first comes, grief is as large as an elephant, but with time it becomes smaller, and easier to deal with until finally you can let it go and just remember.
Ages 3-5
This exploration of grief and mourning recognizes the anger and confusion that a child feels around death while offering possibilities for celebrating life and love.
Ages 4-12
Developed by experts in the fields of early childhood and activism against injustice, this topic-driven book offers clear, concrete language and compelling imagery to introduce the concept of grief.
Ages 3-6
Is it possible we've misunderstood crying all along? That's the discovery one big sister sets out to share with her little brother as they walk to school and get caught in a storm. Along the way they explore sadness, loneliness, fear, frustration, anger and more, through gentle metaphor. Their journey examines our tears revealing how they begin, why they happen, and what to do with them. Throughout the book, the message received is that we are safe in our emotional experiences and that feelings, like the weather, come and go. This is an empowering story about navigating and understanding our feelings as a healthy, important, and very natural part of our lives.
Ages 3-8
Ebook (Donated by OverDrive)
This tender exploration of loss illuminates how kindness, empathy, and friendship can lift spirits. It's for anyone who has experienced hardship or grief, from the death of a loved one or a pet, to a friend moving away, or the transition to a new home or family situation.
Ebook (Donated by OverDrive)
Books for Elementary and Middle School Kids Dealing with Grief, Anxiety and PTSD
Every person experiences loss. And every person grieves. Whether it's a deathloss (the loss of a loved one) or a shadowloss ( the loss of something not someone), we all go through it. But most of us don't know how to deal with it. In this book, grief expert Cole Imperi takes you by the hand and leads you through this often strange and lonely journey. You will learn: how to ask for help; how to help other grievers; what to expect in the days, months and years after a loss. Your grief journey is your own. (Nonfiction)
Following her survival of a shooting during her hometown's Kickoff to Summer, thirteen-year-old Stevie grapples with PTSD but finds comfort through the stories of resilience shared by friends and strangers. (Fiction)
After witnessing a violent attack at school, Manuel struggles with anxiety but his cell phone camera helps him find anchors when he dissociates, and an unexpected friendship opens up new possibilities. (Graphic novel)
The world according to Caitlin is black and white; anything in between is confusing. Before, when things got confusing, Caitlin went to her older brother, Devon, for help. But Devon was killed in a school shooting, and Caitlin's dad is so distraught that he is just not helpful. Caitlin wants everything to go back to the way things were, but she doesn't know how to do that. Then she comes across the word closure--and she realizes this is what she needs. And in her search for it, Caitlin discovers that the world may not be so black and white after all. (Fiction)
Told in their alternating voices, twelve-year-old neighbors and former best friends Cora Hamed and Quinn McCauley begin working together to open a wormhole so they can travel through time to prevent the school shooting that resulted in the deaths of Cora's sister and Quinn's brother. (Fiction)
Nonfiction Books for Teens and Young Adults about Surviving Gun Violence, Grief and Social Justice
Kindra Neely never expected it to happen to her. No one does. And then, one day, it happend: a mass shooting shattered the Umpoqua Commuity College campus. Over the span of a few minutes, on October 1, 2015, eight students and a professor lost their lives. And suddenly, Kindra became a survivor. This empathetic and ultimately hopeful graphic memoir recounts Kindra's journey forward from those few minutes that changed everything.
Featuring art and writing from the students of the Parkland tragedy, this is a raw look at the lives of these teens and a poignant representation of grief, healing, a rally cry for change, and hope for a safe future.
Lauren Hogg, one of the survivors of the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school in Parkland, Florida, dramatically tells her story in graphic novel form. The tragedy of yet another mass shooting has galvanized the young people of the country, and helped launch a movement that continues to gain momentum. Lauren Hogg lost her two best friends that horrible day, but despite her loss she, along with other Parkland students, found her voice and created meaning from the horrors of that day.
This discusses teens' mental health and providing information about the skills needed to help others. With advice around problem-solving, goal setting, conflict resolution, and what to do when someone's problems put the person or others in harm's way, this book shares important helping skills teens can use to listen to and support one another. It also shares when it's time to seek adult help and considerations before helping others.
Written by grief counselor Dr. Korie Leigh, the book touches upon big milestones in the grief journey, starting with new grief and continuing through the days, weeks, months, and years after. Each chapter ends with a Give It a Try activity to help teens build an understanding of what they're going through. Other moments throughout invite teens to reflect on a specific question or experience, tune in to what they're feeling, or try out a new way of viewing or being in their grief.
On February 14, 2018, seventeen-year-old David Hogg and his fourteen-year-old sister, Lauren, went to school at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, like any normal Wednesday. That day, of course, the world changed. By the next morning, with seventeen classmates and faculty dead, they had joined the leadership of a movement to save their own lives, and the lives of all other young people in America. This book is a manifesto for the movement begun that day, one that has already changed America--with voices of a new generation that are speaking truth to power, and are determined to succeed where their elders have failed. With moral force and clarity, a new generation has made it clear that problems previously deemed unsolvable due to powerful lobbies and political cowardice will be theirs to solve.
Teens are galvanizing to speak up and fight for their right to be safe. They don't just want to get involved, they want to change the world. Enough Is Enough is a call to action for teens ready to lend their voices to the gun violence prevention movement. This handbook deftly explains America's gun violence issues--myths and facts, causes and perpetrators, solutions and change-makers--and provides a road map for effective activism.
Fiction Books for Teens and Young Adults including themes on Trauma, Survivor's Guilt and Mental Health
Best friends Matt and Cole grapple with their changing relationships during the summer after high school in this evocative story that explores the long-term effects of gun violence and trauma on young adults.
In the aftermath of a school tragedy, May and Zach struggle with grief, survivor's guilt, and the complex emotional impact of the event, learning how to heal and hope in the face of it all.
In the three years since the Virgil County High School Massacre, a story has grown up around one of the victims, Sarah McHale, that says she died proclaiming her Christian faith--but Leanne Bauer was there, and knows what happened, and she has a choice: stay silent and let people believe in Sarah's martyrdom, or tell the truth.
It took only twenty-two minutes for Kirby Matheson to exit his car, march onto the school grounds, enter the gymnasium, and open fire, killing six and injuring five others. But this isn't a story about the shooting itself. This isn't about recounting that one unforgettable day. Each chapter is told from a different victim's viewpoint, giving insight into who Kirby was and who he'd become. Some are sweet, some are dark; some are seemingly unrelated, about fights or first kisses or late-night parties. This is a book of perspectives--with one character and one event drawing them all together.
Nonfiction, Psychology and Self-Help Books for Adults on Processing Grief and Trauma
Based on O'Connor's own trailblazing neuroimaging work, research in the field, and her real-life stories, The Grieving Brain combines storytelling, accessible science, and practical knowledge that will help us better understand what happens when we grieve and how to navigate loss with more ease and grace.
EBook (Donated by OverDrive)
Megan Devine offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we try to help others who have endured tragedy. Having experienced grief from both sides--as both a therapist and as a woman who witnessed the accidental drowning of her beloved partner--Megan writes with deep insight about the unspoken truths of loss, love, and healing.
Too often, we think of trauma as that which breaks our spirit. Instead, says Dr. MaryCatherine McDonald, the trauma response proves our spirit cannot be broken. Sharing the latest research and self-care tools, this trauma expert's radical reframing will change how you understand trauma and open up a profound new approach for healing.
(Donated by Overdrive)
In this life-affirming framework for the way forward, Hemphill shows us how to heal our bodies, minds, and souls--to develop the interpersonal skills necessary to break down the doors of disconnection and take the necessary risks to reshape our world toward justice.
Audiobook (Donated by OverDrive)
How can we live our lives when everything seems to fall apart--when we are continually overcome by fear, anxiety, and pain? The answer, Pema Chödrön suggests, might be just the opposite of what you expect. Here, in her most beloved and acclaimed work, Pema shows that moving toward painful situations and becoming intimate with them can open up our hearts in ways we never before imagined.
Ebook (Donated by OverDrive)
Grounded in ritual and connection, The Wild Edge of Sorrow welcomes each grief with care and attention, opening us to the feelings, experiences, and sacred knowledge that connect us to each other and ultimately make us whole. Profoundly moving, beautifully written, this book is a balm for the soul and a necessary salve for moving together through difficult times.
Ebook (Donated by OverDrive)