Mental health and wellbeing

Charlotte is a student at a prestigious boarding school who has recently lost her two best friends in tragic circumstances. Pushed hard by her driven mother to succeed and excel, Charlotte feels ordinary and very much the outsider in comparison to the academic and sporting elite she is forced to compete against each day. When she drinks a mysterious vial, everything changes and suddenly Charlotte finds that she has become as flawless as those around her. However, this is to come at a great cost.

The latest offering from John Green feels like a long time coming. His last title, the blockbuster The Fault in Our Stars, was released in 2012. However, Turtles All the Way Down is well worth the wait.

There have been so many changes in Amy-May’s young life. The family has separated from her wonderful, yet troubled artist Dad; they’ve moved house far from her lovely cottage with a garden and fresh sea air; and now, she is so filled with anxiety, she can’t go to school. It’s just too much for her.

After a failed suicide attempt, teenager Adam Murphy wakes to find a ghostly companion whom only he can see and hear. As Adam tries to work through his recovery, the ghost is with him, and acts as the narrator to this story.

Loneliness pervades this simply told story of homelessness. Both the watercolour pencil illustrations in soft greys and yellows, and the spare text, convey the isolation of the old man who wakes in a doorway while, down the road, children tumble and shout their way to school.

Olive knows she has mental problems, she just doesn’t want to know her actual diagnosis because she doesn’t want to use it as an excuse for her behaviour. When her parents run out of ways to help her, her doctor decides to enter her into a new trail programme, Camp Reset, a residential programme for troubled teens. Even though Olive doesn’t always embrace the treatments made available to her, she does begin to make friends and also to think of ways of fixing her problems. But is there just one answer or solution to all mental illnesses or is Olive fooling herself?

Florence, Jasper, Wilf and Andrew are patients at Manor Lane Diagnostic and Therapy Centre. They don’t believe they have anything in common except their dependency on Manor Lane’s psychotherapist Howard Green. When he suddenly leaves the centre with no explanation they decide together to track him down to ensure his wellbeing and get the answers they need, and along the way they realise that they have more in common than they think.

Andy’s mum owns a quirky, second-hand clothing shop called Eliza’s Emporium. The only problem is Andy hates the clothes her mum brings back from the shop and wants nothing more than to have her own expensive clothes. Everything changes when Andy finds a bag left in the shop, full of designer clothes.