Bibliotherapy #1: Pack the floods of life away

Literary prescriptions for struggling readers, only children, and teenagers heading down obsessive paths.

A Day That’s Ours by Blake Nuto and Vyara Boyadjieva

I asked, and you delivered! Thank you for getting in touch over the past week with your reader profiles. They’ve been incredibly diverse, and interesting to read through. I have taken them all on board, and will start to roll out a new series of bibliotherapy for paid subscribers.

Before we dive in, what exactly is bibliotherapy?

Kate Gillespie from VATE recently shared this brilliant article with me, which is an impressive deep dive into the history of the term.

Bibliotherapy is a very broad term for the ancient practice of encouraging reading for therapeutic effect. The first use of the term is usually dated to a jaunty 1916 article in The Atlantic Monthly, “A Literary Clinic.” In it, the author describes stumbling upon a “bibliopathic institute” run by an acquaintance, Bagster, in the basement of his church, from where he dispenses reading recommendations with healing value. “Bibliotherapy is…a new science,” Bagster explains. “A book may be a stimulant or a sedative or an irritant or a soporific. The point is that it must do something to you, and you ought to know what it is. A book may be of the nature of a soothing syrup or it may be of the nature of a mustard plaster.”

I’m excited to prescribe some books this week, hopefully more in the nature of a soothing syrup.

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The (potentially) right book for a grandson who has dyslexia:

Kev and Trev by Kylie Howarth

I don’t know the exact age of this patient (please forgive the overkill of the analogy), but I’m going to hazard a guess that they’re a relatively new reader, who has maybe started to realise that reading isn’t coming as naturally to them as most of their classmates.

They’re lucky that their grandparent is paying attention, and wants to help.

The first book that comes to mind is Kev and Trev. This brilliant graphic novel for younger readers is engaging and quirky, and most importantly, author and illustrator Kylie Howarth worked to make it as dyslexic-friendly as possible.

I decided to reach out to Kylie directly, so that this bibliotherapy recommendation could be as thorough as possible. I know that the field of dyslexia can be complex, and I would hate to say anything that contradicts the latest research. What I do know is that Kev and Trev has been well-thought out, and is very well-executed.

In the words of the author herself: