Contemporary children’s literature recommendations for working with preadolescent children of divorce

McMillen, Paula, & Pehrsson, Dale-Elizabeth. (2010). Contemporary children’s literature recommendations for working with preadolescent children of divorce. Journal of Children’s Literature, 36(2), 29-36.


Only six books on divorce, three nonfiction and three fiction selections, are reviewed here. Five of the books are clearly and convincingly endorsed by the reviewers, and one was included because it was cited frequently in the literature the authors reviewed, and though they did not like it as well as the other five, they included it as a “benchmark” text. Each review contains a brief synopsis, a description of the book’s strengths, a description of the book’s limitations, and then the author’s recommendations for how best to use the book. Although only six books are reviewed, additional references are provided in the bibliography. This is a helpful article, carefully researched and written, that could help teachers and also parents select books that might help preteens cope with the many problems and issues surrounding divorce. With divorce, single parenthood, and blended families becoming increasingly common, such books can be useful tools. I know several of them and have used them in my own professional life, in particular Jill Krementz’s book, How It Feels When Parents Divorce (1998) which has been around for a little while but is still engaging and relevant (Krementz has an entire series of “How It Feels” books that address a number of difficult issues, including death and dying).

The authors are careful in their treatment of the controversial concept of bibliotherapy, but they make clear that bibliotherapy is what they are advocating from the earliest paragraphs of the article. The approach is a cautious one. For example, they warn “helpers” to stick to fiction and stay away from nonfiction books if the child has not yet accepted that divorce is a problem for him or her. They carefully define “clinical bibliotherapy” and contrast it with ”developmental bibliotherapy”, and they caution those who are not mental health care professionals not to attempt the former, but don’t really go into detail about how one kind of bibliotherapy would look different from the other kind. It might be safer if those of us who want to share these books with children could have some more specific cautions about just how far it is safe and ethical to go, and where we should draw the line. The authors are careful to recommend discussions with adults to accompany either individual or group readings, but we have no specifics about what sorts of probes and prompts an adult could safely use in such discussions without risking venturing into the forbidden area of “clinical bibliotherapy”. That worries me a bit. I am very much in favor of using all kinds of children’s trade books, but I am wary of intentional bibliotherapy. As professionals we need to tread lightly, be sensitive, know our limits, and of course, know when and how to seek the assistance of mental health experts. If the reader is interested in learning more about the authors’ research on bibliotherapy (they are at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas) there are links given to a helpful website about that research. I visited the site and learned a lot there. The site has a demo of an evaluation instrument for books plus links to several other good websites. In addition, those visiting the site can register to post reviews of books, which is a healthy intellectual and professional exchange.