Shrinks

A mouse-sized kid tackles giant-sized tasks in this classic picture book from the brilliant mind that brought you The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. When he wakes up a tenth of his normal size, unflappable George doesn’t mind at all. Now he can fly his toy plane, for real! Swim with this goldfish! Sled down the dishes on a sponge! But reality soon sets in: how will he be able to make his bed, brush his teeth, or take care of his baby brother—when he’s no bigger than a spoon? And…is that a cat lurking ‘round the corner? William Joyce’s classic, which was made into an Emmy Award–winning television show, is back!

The inspiration for the PBS series Mysterious of Mental Illness, Shrinks brilliantly tells the "astonishing" story of psychiatry's origins, demise, and redemption (Siddhartha Mukherjee). Psychiatry has come a long way since the days of chaining "lunatics" in cold cells and parading them as freakish marvels before a gaping public. But, as Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, the former president of the American Psychiatric Association, reveals in his extraordinary and eye-opening book, the path to legitimacy for "the black sheep of medicine" has been anything but smooth. In Shrinks, Dr. Lieberman traces the field from its birth as a mystic pseudo-science through its adolescence as a cult of "shrinks" to its late blooming maturity — beginning after World War II — as a science-driven profession that saves lives. With fascinating case studies and portraits of the luminaries of the field — from Sigmund Freud to Eric Kandel — Shrinks is a gripping and illuminating read, and an urgent call-to-arms to dispel the stigma of mental illnesses by treating them as diseases rather than unfortunate states of mind. “A lucid popular history...At once skeptical and triumphalist. It shows just how far psychiatry has come.” —Julia M. Klein, Boston Globe

In this powerful story from Christine Baldacchino, author of Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress, a young girl navigates social anxiety at family gatherings and works with her father to find a solution. Violet Shrink doesn’t like parties. Or bashes, or gatherings. Lots of people and lots of noise make Violet’s tummy ache and her hands sweat. She would much rather spend time on her own, watching the birds in her backyard, reading comics or listening to music through her purple headphones. The problem is that the whole Shrink family loves parties with loud music and games and dancing. At cousin Char’s birthday party, Violet hides under a table and imagines she is a shark gliding effortlessly through the water, looking for food. And at Auntie Marlene and Uncle Leli’s anniversary bash, Violet sits alone at the top of the stairs, imagining she is a slithering snake way up in the branches. When Violet learns that the Shrink family reunion is fast approaching, she finally musters up the courage to have a talk with her dad. In this thoughtful story about understanding and acceptance, Christine Baldacchino’s warm text demonstrates the role imagination often plays for children dealing with anxiety, and the power of a child expressing their feelings to a parent who is there to listen. Carmen Mok’s charming illustrations perfectly capture Violet’s emotions and the vibrancy of her imagination. A valuable contribution to books addressing mental health. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.3 Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

Fifty Shrinks is a compendium of photographs and essays of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in the most sacred of spaces, the private offices where they see their patients.

"Deeply felt... [Kramer's] book is a polemic against a society that accepts depression as a fact of life." —O, The Oprah Magazine A profound look at depression by the author of The New York Times Bestseller, Listening to Prozac In his landmark bestseller Listening to Prozac, Peter Kramer revolutionized the way we think about antidepressants and the culture in which they are so widely used. Now Kramer offers a frank and unflinching look at the condition those medications treat: depression. Definitively refuting our notions of "heroic melancholy," he walks readers through groundbreaking new research—studies that confirm depression's status as a devastating disease and suggest pathways toward resilience. Thought-provoking and enlightening, Against Depression provides a bold revision of our understanding of mood disorder and promises hope to the millions who suffer from it.

The Upside-Down Magic kids are back in another topsy-turvy adventure in the next installment of this New York Times bestselling series, now a Disney Channel Original Movie! Marigold Ramos can magically make things small - sometimes very, very small. The only problem? She can't figure out how to make them big again. Maybe a new tutor can help Marigold manage her magic. And maybe her magic will come in handy as she and her friends in the Upside-Down Magic class band together to protest a new rule by their principal, a super unfair rule that bans them from bringing their amazing new toy dragons to school.But when Marigold starts shrinking her friends and the class bunny, it's a humongous problem! It's time to figure out how Marigold and her friends can make a big statement... without disappearing entirely!

"Psychology has stepped down from the university chair into the marketplace" was how the New York Times put it in 1926. Another commentator in 1929 was more biting. Psychoanalysis, he said, had over a generation, "converted the human scene into a neurotic." Freud first used the word around 1895, and by the 1920s psychoanalysis was a phenomenon to be reckoned with in the United States. How it gained such purchase, taking hold in virtually every aspect of American culture, is the story Lawrence R. Samuel tells in Shrink, the first comprehensive popular history of psychoanalysis in America. Arriving on the scene at around the same time as the modern idea of the self, psychoanalysis has both shaped and reflected the ascent of individualism in American society. Samuel traces its path from the theories of Freud and Jung to the innermost reaches of our current me-based, narcissistic culture. Along the way he shows how the arbiters of culture, high and low, from public intellectuals, novelists, and filmmakers to Good Housekeeping and the Cosmo girl, mediated or embraced psychoanalysis (or some version of it), until it could be legitimately viewed as an integral feature of American consciousness.