Bibliotherapy is a new and creative approach for helping children deal with both small problems and major life crises, such as placement in substitute care. Bibliotherapy literally means treatment through books. It is a process of intervention that involves the child as well as the helping person. Bibliotherapy is an approach that helps children through reading to more clearly understand the problems facing them and to develop solutions for solving problems. Bibliotherapy is particularly useful for children placed in foster care or adoption because it can be implemented by all helping persons working with the child welfare system. These persons include foster and adoptive parents, biological parents, teachers, psychologists, social workers, clergy, and librarians.

Literature can play an important role in helping young children cope with developmental changes and deal with the external world. This volume offers a guide to books published between 1980 and 1985 that preschool children enjoy and that at the same time address the needs and problems they encounter in their daily lives. An introductory chapter looks at the utilization of literature to help children adjust to developmental changes and examines the factors to consider in book selection. The remaining chapters focus on specific developmental issues that affect preschoolers: anger and other emotions, attitudes and values, family relationships, fear and fantasy, motor development and physical change, peers and school, self-image and sex roles, single-parent and blended families, and special developmental needs.

"[Serves] as a useful guide to adolescent literature for librarians and English teachers." Curriculum Review