Abstract

Life as a bird can be stressful! From worrying about airplanes, windows, and getting enough worms to eat, it is clear that birds can be anxious beings. Through a light-touch, quizzical depiction of bird behaviour, All Birds Have Anxiety uses colourful images and astute explanations to explore with gentle humour what it means to live with anxiety day-to-day, and how to begin to deal with it.

Following the style of the best-selling All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome and All Dogs Have ADHD, wonderful colour photographs express the complex and difficult ideas related to anxiety disorder in an easy-to-understand way. This simple yet profound book validates the deeper everyday experiences of anxiety, provides an empathic understanding of the many symptoms associated with anxiety, and offers compassionate suggestions for change.

The combination of understanding and gentle humour make this the ideal introduction to anxiety disorder for those diagnosed with this condition, their family and friends and those generally interested in understanding anxiety.

Whilst anxiety is a normal and universally experienced emotion, problems with anxiety are becoming increasingly common in children. Anxiety affects many aspects of children's functioning. Children who experience excessive anxiety find it more difficult to learn, and they feel uncomfortable socially. Anxiety can take the fun out of childhood. In the book, All Birds Have Anxiety Kathy Hoopmann creatively communicates in a developmentally appropriate way information about anxiety, how it affects people and most importantly what can be done to manage it. Using beautiful pictures and carefully crafted words, All Birds Have Anxiety is an excellent book that will enable adults to discuss anxiety with children and together develop better strategies to cope with this difficult emotion.
Associate Professor James Scott, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research
Kathy Hoopmann is the best-selling author of All Cats have Asperger Syndrome, All Dogs Have ADHD, Inside Asperger's Looking Out, and The Asperger Adventure series. She lives in Australia.
Anxiety is a highly topical and pertinent issue, since it is being identified as a barrier to social inclusion and learning for more and more children. The book explores its complexities in an innovative way, using different types of birds to beautifully illustrate the fears that anxiety might produce, the thoughts and emotions that can arise, and crucially, what children could do that might help them to manage these more effectively.
Helen Punter-Bruce, Special Children

Kathy's wonderful book is a powerful educational resource for parents and teachers alike. This book normalises the experience of anxiety, it explains how worry happens and how it affects us, but it also gives hope on how to overcome worry, stress, and fear. It helps children and adults overcome self-doubt and life challenges. The beautiful images are carefully selected, displaying common emotions amongst all living beings.
I strongly recommend this fun book to children of all ages, educators and parents.

Dr Paula Barrett, International Author of the Friends Resilience Programs, www.friendsresilience.org
With their mix of words and pictures Kathy Hoopmann's books have always put a smile on my face even as they've explained complex and sometimes scary issues in terms any child can understand. All Cat's Have Asperger's made autism relatable to thousands of children. Her new book on anxiety promises to do the same for a much more common condition that all of us know, and many of us live with.
John Elder Robison, NY Times Bestselling author, Look Me in the Eye and Switched On; Neurodiversity Scholar, The College of William & Mary
K-Gr 3-Hoopmann explores the complicated subject of anxiety, including many of its causes and symptoms and different coping mechanisms, in this compact, accessible title. The book is composed of colorful and often humorous photographs of various types of birds, accompanied by simple sentences about day-to-day life with anxiety. For example, a page about feeling nervous in crowds is paired with an image of a large colony of penguins. This lighthearted approach helps make a complex topic child-friendly and easy to understand. Readers are provided with an overview of the daily feelings and challenges associated with apprehension. Suggested solutions are also presented. Hoopmann encourages readers to face what scares them and see it as something that can be managed. By offering an empathetic and relatable look at anxiety, this resource can help promote mental health awareness among children and their families. VERDICT A fine addition to school libraries and guidance counselor offices.
School Library Journal
A very worried little snowy owl looks out from the cover of this exceptional picture book. In wonderfully expressive photographs and short bursts of text, we learn a lot about anxiety...Not sleeping, feeling groggy or panicky, not being able to cope with ordinary tasks - all of these are talked about in simple terms with amazing photos of birds illustrating the problems involved... This is a book that could be used by anyone from about 9 upwards (adults as well) and will provide humour as well as serious content.
Healthy Books, healthybooks.org.uk
Useful for discussion on anxiety, how it manifests and different ways of dealing with it. Oh - and the pictures will make you smile a lot!
Janet Dowling, The School Librarian
Once again, I am in awe of Kathy's ability to make the seemingly complicated, simple and accessible for all. Anxiety runs deep in our society - sometimes emerging as a pattern, and impacting on a negative way in our classrooms, home places and work places. 'All Birds Have Anxiety' is a wonderfully engaging resource that reminds us how to recognise the symptoms of anxiety in ourselves and others. She provides practical advice on how to acknowledge and deal with this emotion effectively. Not only will this book benefit the children that access it, but so too will it remind the adults in their lives of effective strategies that we can employ for ourselves and model for the children in our care. I will be recommending this resource as part of an intervention strategy to be implemented by parents, teachers and therapists of children that are facing challenges in managing anxiety. So too will I recommend it for use as part of a pro-active approach to promoting and maintaining positive mental health in our schools.
Gráinne Boyle, Educational Psychologist and Director of The Innovation Hub, Dubai
Building on All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome and All Dogs Have ADHD, Hoopmann uses stock photographs of dozens of birds to convey aspects of life with anxiety. The project relies heavily on anthropomorphism-namely reading worry, frustration, and fear in the faces and body language of eagles, penguins, and other birds, none of which are identified. 'When stress builds up, anything can set off anxiety, such as: a change of plan, something new, a comment, a thought. Stuff,' writes Hoopmann beside an image of a horned owl, its wide, orange eyes meant to signal extreme alarm. The text and images are well paired, but 50 pages of stressed-and-depressed-looking birds and their 'symptoms' ('Wide-awake thoughts churn in our minds') is a lot to wade through before Hoopmann begins to suggest ways to combat anxiety in the final third of the book. Ages 4-up. (Mar.)
Publishers Weekly