By Raina Telgemeier
Raina Telgemeier's true story of the year her stomach became a knot of worry, and how she slowly learned what to do about it.
A stomach bug goes around Raina's family, and something in Raina never quite settles after. She becomes terrified of throwing up, and then of eating, and then of the worry itself. Her stomach hurts before school, before tests, before anything that scares her, and the fear feeds the ache and the ache feeds the fear. Some mornings it tips into full panic. With her mom's help she starts seeing a therapist, and week by week she works at the breathing exercises, the lunch table, and the long walk to the school bathroom.
Some children lie awake with a worried stomach; this is the book that says: this has a name, other people have it, and there are things that help. Raina draws anxiety so honestly that an anxious child feels seen rather than lectured, and a calm child understands a friend a little better. The therapist scenes model that getting help is normal and it works. It reads as fast and friendly as any of her books, which is exactly why it can carry such a real subject so lightly.