May is Mental Health Awareness Month and staff have compiled a great list of recent reads that highlight ways to check in on your mental health or read about other people who are also struggling. Above all remember it’s okay to not be okay and there’s no shame in asking for help!

A staff-created list with even more of our recent recommendations can be found on our online catalogue.

Memoir – Radical Love: Learning to Accept Yourself and Others by Zachary Levi

Radical Love combines witty, touching, and powerful commentary with relatable illustrations to help you on your own path toward mental wellness. With vulnerability and humor, Zac relates the valuable lessons and insights he’s learned so that you can rise from the ashes of trauma and pursue a meaningful life of gratitude.

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Non-Fiction – Tell Me What You Want by Charlotte Fox Weber

Written with warmth and compassion, full of dramatic, intimate, and moving personal stories, and based on careful research as well as firsthand observations. For fans of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and Group, this inspiring and moving exploration of the twelve fundamental psychological needs we all share goes behind the closed doors of therapy to guide us in navigating our deepest longings.

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Non-Fiction – Generation Dread by Britt Wray

Climate and environment-related fears and anxieties are on the rise everywhere. As with any type of stress, eco-anxiety can lead to lead to burnout, avoidance, or a disturbance of daily functioning. In Generation Dread, the author seamlessly merges scientific knowledge with emotional insight to show how these intense feelings are a healthy response to the troubled state of the world.

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Graphic Novel/Memoir – Feelings: A Story in Seasons by Manjit Thapp

Articulating and validating the range of feelings we all experience, this is a book that allows us to feel connected and comforted by the experiences that make us human. Told over the course of a year, the author shares the ups and downs of her feelings across all four seasons, from the highs of spring and summer to the lows of winter.

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Fiction – Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler

With unflinching honesty and heart, this relatable debut from a fresh new voice explores grief and mental health while capturing the timeless nature of what it’s like to be young and in love—with your friends, with your city, and with a person who cannot, will not, love you back.

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Young Adult Novel-inVerse – Forever is Now by Mariama J. Lockington

A poignant and lyrical young adult novel-in-verse about a Black teen coming of age in an anxiety-inducing world that tackles teen activism, agoraphobia and the Black Lives Matter movement.

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Young Adult Fiction – Chaos Theory by Nic Stone

A gripping romance about two BIPOC teens: a certified genius living with bipolar disorder and a politician’s son who is running from his alcoholism and grief. This is a gut punch of a novel about about living with grief, prioritizing mental health, and finding love amid the chaos.

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Middle Grade Graphic Novel – Living with Viola by Rosena Fung

Forest of Reading nominated debut author, Rosena Fung draws on her own early experiences with anxiety and the pressures of growing up as the child of Chinese immigrant parents to craft a personal story that explores mental health, cultural differences, and the trials of middle school.

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Middle Grade Novel-in-Verse – Iveliz Explains it All by Andrea Beatriz Arango; illustrated by Alyssa Bermudez

A powerful and compassionate, novel-in-verse debut that navigates mental health, finding your voice, and discovering that those who really love you will stay by your side. The author does an excellent job exploring PTSD, grief, therapy, medication and suicidal ideation in a young child in this incredible #ownvoices story.

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Picture Book – Dark Cloud by Anna Lazowski; illustrated by Penny Neville-Lee

In this sensitive picture book, symbolic imagery perfectly captures how depression can look and feel as a little girl visualizes her depression as a way of learning to cope. The lyrical text and expressive drawings provide young children with a way to understand and talk about their own feelings. The repetition in the text and the visual narrative pull readers in, making this an excellent read-aloud pick to spark discussions about feelings.

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Celebrate the diversity of Black Canadian experiences all year long by checking out any of these recent and award-winning releases by and about Black Canadian authors. A list with even more of our recent favorites can be found on our online catalogue.

Related event:

• Thursday, Feb. 16: Author Talk with Matthew Dawkins – To help us celebrate Black History Month, we will be speaking with young Jamaican Canadian author Matthew Dawkins. Matthew will discuss his debut young adult novel, Until We Break. Pre-registration required.

Fiction – Hold My Girl by Charlene Carr

With themes of racial identity, loss and betrayal, this emotional novel centred around a difficult moral question beautifully explores the complexities of motherhood. Recommended for fans of Heather Marshall and Ashley Audrain.

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Fiction – In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas

The fates of two unforgettable women–one just beginning a journey of reckoning and self-discovery and the other completing her life’s last vital act–intertwine in this sweeping, powerful novel set at the terminus of the Underground Railroad.

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Short Story Fiction – Uncertain Kin by Janice Lynn Mather

For readers of Frying Plantain and Scarborough, a luminous, mesmerizing collection of linked stories about the lives of woman and girls in The Bahamas, from rising literary star and Governor General’s Award-finalist Janice Lynn Mather.

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Fantasy/Novella – Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk

A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago’s divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above in a small but powerful package.

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Poetry/Prose – Dream of No One but Myself by David Bradford

An expansive, hybrid, debut collection of prose poems, self-erasures, verse, and family photo cut-ups about growing up in a racially trinary, diversely troubled family an award-winning poet.

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Memoir – My Ackee Tree by Suzanne Barr

This memoir from Toronto-born chef, Suzanne Barr is full of food, family and her battle with the stereotypes of being a Black female cook who eventually became a culinary star in an industry beset by dated practices and landlords with too much power. For fans of The Measure of My Powers and Notes from a Young Black Chef.

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Young Adult Graphic Novel – Batter Royale by Leisl Adams

This Forest of Reading-nominated graphic novel debut sees a biracial teen girl competing in a reality baking competition with her friend in a fish-out-of-water style romantic comedy about climbing out of the circumstances you’re in and making your dreams come true.

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Young Adult Fiction – Until We Break by Matthew Dawkins

From Jamaican-born Watty award-winning author and poet, Matthew Dawkins comes a YA romance that sees an injured aspiring ballerina forced to reassess her life aspirations with help from a talented street artist. This book deals with important topics including mental health, grief and racial justice. Be sure to join us Feb 16^th for a virtual Author Talk with this talented debut novelist.

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Young Adult Fantasy – Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury

An evocative and mind-bending new psychological thriller that follows two Black teen girls navigating the treacherous past of a mysterious mansion ten years apart. Perfect for fans of true crime and cold cases from the best-selling, Governor-General award nominated author of Blood like magic.

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Middle Grade Fiction – Beatrice and Croc Harry by Lawrence Hill

One of Canada’s most celebrated author’s debut novel for young readers in which a brave and resilient young Black girl searches for identity and healing when she finds herself stranded in a magical forest with only a talking crocodile for a companion.

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Picture Books – Dear Black Child written by Rahma Roodah, illustrated by Lydia Mba

With gorgeous artwork, this new picture book celebrates Black joy in a moving and lyrical tribute to and affirmation of Black children around the world by an exciting new author and illustrator duo.

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