Mental health and mental illness are two sides of the same coin, and many people will experience both over the course of their lifetime. Brenda's choice is a thought-provoking read about the personal and social challenges of dealing with a mental illness, while Sharon is occasionally flummoxed by Kaz Cooke's more light-hearted turn of phrase in her comprehensive guide to female adolescent health. Queensland Mental Health Week runs from 5-13 October, so it's the perfect time to read another book on this month's theme, Health and Wellbeing.
Brenda Carter read Goodbye Jamie Boyd by Elizabeth Fensham
Before I killed him, my big brother was my best friend. So begins Goodbye Jamie Boyd, a young adult verse novel that reveals what it’s like to live with schizophrenia.
Jamie is Anna’s companion, confidant and mentor. When he becomes possessive and jealous of her real life relationships, however, persuading Anna to harm herself and those she holds dear, she realises that she must seek help.
Anna feels incredibly guilty for killing her brother, resorting to self harm as a way to punish herself. Not wanting to burden her parents, she eventually confides in her small art class. Here she receives the support and friendship she so desperately needs.
Like her book for younger teens, Helicopter Man, Goodbye Jamie Boyd seeks to raise awareness of the struggles and isolation of people with mental illness. Fensham writes,
I have also come to realise that every human is probably blighted at some time or other with a mental health issue. If, recognising our own fragility, we could more easily see the person behind a mental illness and offer them support and friendship, then that surely is a step forward?
Fiction, Australian author, 820.94 FEN Curriculum collection
I never quite know how to read Kaz Cooke. She’s one of those
authors (and cartoonists) who treads a strange line between flippant, snarky
and clever, and I’m never entirely sure which one she’s being at any given
time.
Brenda Carter read Goodbye Jamie Boyd by Elizabeth Fensham Before I killed him, my big brother was my best friend. So begins Goodbye Jamie Boyd, a young adult verse novel that reveals what it’s like to live with schizophrenia.
Jamie is Anna’s companion, confidant and mentor. When he becomes possessive and jealous of her real life relationships, however, persuading Anna to harm herself and those she holds dear, she realises that she must seek help.
Anna feels incredibly guilty for killing her brother, resorting to self harm as a way to punish herself. Not wanting to burden her parents, she eventually confides in her small art class. Here she receives the support and friendship she so desperately needs.
Like her book for younger teens, Helicopter Man, Goodbye Jamie Boyd seeks to raise awareness of the struggles and isolation of people with mental illness. Fensham writes,
I have also come to realise that every human is probably blighted at some time or other with a mental health issue. If, recognising our own fragility, we could more easily see the person behind a mental illness and offer them support and friendship, then that surely is a step forward?
Fiction, Australian author, 820.94 FEN Curriculum collection
I never quite know how to read Kaz Cooke. She’s one of those
authors (and cartoonists) who treads a strange line between flippant, snarky
and clever, and I’m never entirely sure which one she’s being at any given
time.
Take, for example, a line (that I’m probably misremembering)
from her book of beauty tips published a few years ago:
“Is your face dirty and oily? You should try washing it!”
Is it fun and light hearted? Is it a clever and pointed
pastiche of the self-help beauty book? Is it just plain sarcastic? I don’t
know. Perhaps I’ll never know.
Girl Stuff is a rather hefty tome (554) in which
Cooke gives teenage girls advice on everything from boobs changing shape to
period management, to having friends who are boys who are not your boyfriends.
This book is massive because it covers almost anything a teenage girl would
like to ask but is too embarrassed to do so (changing bodies, relationships of all sorts, sex… the whole works).
It’s actually a really great book to give to a girl heading
into puberty, and she’ll probably go back to consult different parts of it at
different times during the next few years of her life. It’s written by a woman
for girls, but that doesn’t mean men and boys can’t read it – it will certainly
open their eyes to a number of things girls have to deal with.
Sometimes, though, I’m just not sure how to take it…
Non-fiction, Australian author, 305.2352 COO
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