Please Explain Anxiety to Me!

"As a Play Therapist, mother and foster parent of children with anxiety issues, this book is exactly what I needed. This family-friendly story not only explains but also normalizes anxiety symptoms.  Once this is achieved, children can begin to practice different and hopefully more successful self-care strategies to deal with this sometimes overwhelming experience. Well done!"
-- Theresa Fraser, M.A., Canadian Child and Play Psychotherapist, author of Billy had to Move: a Foster Care story.

"I just read a wonderful picture book about anxiety in children! If only my sisters had been able to read Please Explain Anxiety to Me! by Laurie Zelinger, PhD and Jordan Zelinger when they were growing up. Both my sisters, and, as a consequence, my parents, and the other four siblings struggled and suffered for years because of their overwhelming anxiety. As soon as I had read a few sentences of Dr. Laurie Zelinger’s Introduction, I knew this book is the answer to many parents’ prayers. It is a resource to help adults describe anxiety in a way that children can understand. I thank and congratulate the authors for doing an excellent job of writing a book that helps children to understand and process fear, worry, and anxiety. Please Explain Anxiety to Me! is a family-friendly story complete with colourful, realistic illustrations by Elisa Sabella that support the text on each page. It has advice for parents to help them help their child. Best of all it has self-care strategies that children can rely on to help them turn their internal worry switches to the OFF position.
-- Lorna d’Entremont, Special Needs Book Review

“Please Explain „Anxiety to Me! Simple Biology and Solutions for Children and Parents by Laurie Zelinger, PhD, and Jordan Zelinger is a book that explains what anxiety is and why it exists. The second part of the book gives ideas and suggestions for getting rid of anxiety. I would recommend this book to kids who have too much anxiety and need to learn how to control it. Please Explain Anxiety to Me! would also help the friends of kids who have anxiety problems to understand what is going on.
-- Evan Weldon (age 8) for Reader Views

"In story book fashion, Laurie Zelinger , PhD breaks down the whys of anxiety in easy to understand ways. There are real psychological terminology used as well, but the words are explained in a concise and appropriate ways, and the word is also given phonetically to make the pronunciation easier to get. The large pictures make the dinosaur story feel like a regular picture story book. The story is worded so that it is easy to ask the questions like - 'have you ever felt like that' several times which does make the comparison with the dinosaurs more realistic. The helpful suggestions for reducing anxiety and relieving some of the symptoms are easy to understand and feels more like a game than a calming tool, but if it works, even better. The closing rhymes are fun to say and fun to practice. All this information, so much of which was common since, the story was good but not great and the pictures were at times distracting from the "anxiety" topic of the book. Great concept to help children learn to cope with anxiety.
-- Debbie Onyx for ReviewTheBook.com