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| Dawn Huebner | |
Dr. Dawn Huebner is a psychologist, parent coach, speaker, and the award-winning author of 20 mental health books for children. Her books have been translated into 25 languages and have touched the lives of children around the world. She is the author of six of the What to Do Guides books, including What to Do When You Worry Too Much, the 2004 title that started the series. Huebner spoke with Shelf Awareness about the series, updating it, and helping children live happier lives.
What is What to Do When You Worry Too Much's origin story?
Long before self-publishing and digital art, I wrote and hand-drew illustrations for a stapled-together booklet I gave my clients to help them remember the things they were learning in therapy. Children loved it, and benefited from it. So, I turned that handmade booklet into the now iconic What to Do When You Worry Too Much, and then wrote five more books using the same interactive format. Thus began Magination Press's What to Do Guides.
Why were these books such a hit?
They are warm, humorous, and pitched perfectly to 6-12-year-olds. They normalize difficult feelings while providing children with tools to overcome them. And they work! These books are interactive, with space for children to draw and write directly in the book so they can customize what they are learning, internalize it, and ultimately master even difficult cognitive-behavioral skills. When these books came out, there was nothing like them in the market.
Why produce second editions?
What to Do When You Worry Too Much, and my next five books (Temper Flares, Grumble, Brain Gets Stuck, Dread Your Bed, and Bad Habits) came out when I was a young psychologist. I am now an older, more experienced psychologist. Both my understanding and the field's understanding of anxiety (and other mental health issues) has changed, as has popular culture. For example, first editions of What to Do Guides reference television rather than screens, and the artwork doesn't show the array of same-sex, one-parent, and mixed-race families children grow up in today. So, both the content and the art of the books needed a refresh.
What was it like to update these books?
It was tricky. We needed to keep the books familiar to the therapists, school counselors, pediatricians, and parents devoted to the original series. But we also needed to bring them in line with current best practices, and make sure they were relevant to today's young people. We kept the best parts--the drawing and writing elements, the metaphors that help children understand complex cognitive-behavioral concepts, the warm and accepting tone, the humor--and we modified the clinical bits that needed to be updated. We did a refresh on the layout, and added fabulous art. Voilà! A new-and-improved set of What to Do Guides.
Can you give an example of how the content changed?
The first edition of What to Do When You Worry Too Much encouraged children to envision Worry as a small creature and taught them to "talk back" to it, using words like "Go away!" and "Scram." But there was a problem. Children were yelling at Worry, and coming back to report that nothing had changed; they felt just as worried as they had before. So that section needed to be changed. In the second edition, children are taught to see Worry as overzealous or tricky, rather than mean, and to say things like, "No, thank you" before turning away. The expectation is not that Worry will vanish--it's on empowering children to challenge it, and not let Worry be the boss.
Have you gotten any feedback on these new editions?
It's been uniformly positive. As the founder of this series, it will always be my hope that these books will speak to young people around the world and that they will teach children who are struggling (and the adults who care about them) specific skills that will empower them to work toward change. The byline for this series was created 20 years ago and is still what they're all about: "Helping children live happier lives."