Healing from Grief, Trauma, and Suicide
On September 10, 2023 the East Grand Forks Campbell Library spent the afternoon at Altu's TEARS (Together We Educate About the Realities of Suicide) annual Talk & Walk Event. We were able to bring many resources and partner with Lotus, Inc. Lotus, Inc. offers one-to-one individual support by a certified peer recovery specialist at the East Grand Forks Campbell Library and provides aid to members of our community facing struggles with substance use disorders.
Here is a list of books we have at the library that can help you further understand and process the realities of suicide, grief, and trauma.
Grief & Loss | Suicide | Trauma & Mental Illness | Books for Children
Books on Grief & Loss
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Call Number: 155.9 ADICHIE 2021
An exquisite work of meditation, remembrance, and hope, written in the wake of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's beloved father’s death in the summer of 2020
by Emma Hopkinson
Call Number: 155.9 DONALDSON 2021
Written by two women who experienced loss at a young age, this incredible grieving book will help you navigate any kind of loss, whether it’s the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or the loss of your job.
by Joanne Cacciatore, PhD
Call Number: 155.937 CACCIATORE
In the style of a quote-a-day collection, this book from Wisdom’s bestselling author Joanne Cacciatore distills down the award-winning book Bearing the Unbearable into easy-to-access small chunks and includes much brand-new material, including new prose and poems from Dr. Jo and other sources as well.
by Megan Devine
Call Number: 155.9 DEVINE
Megan Devine offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we help others who have endured tragedy. Having experienced grief from both sides--as both a therapist and as a woman who witnessed the accidental drowning of her beloved partner—Megan writes with deep insight about the unspoken truths of loss, love, and healing.
by Amanda Held Opelt
Call Number: 204.42 OPELT 2022
In a raw and inspiring reflection on grief—selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of the year—a mourning sister processes her personal story of loss by exploring the history of bereavement customs.
by Jayne Flaagan
Call Number: 155.937 FLAAGAN 2014
Written for anyone grieving the loss of a loved one. Your loss may have been recent or many years ago. You may have lost someone to death, a separation or divorce. Whatever the time frame or reason for your grieving, this book will help you along the road to recovery.
Books on Suicide
Call Number: DVD 248.866 RECLAIMING
Each year, over one million people end their lives by suicide. All death unsettles us, but suicide causes a very distinct set of emotional, moral, and religious scars. It brings with it an ache, a chaos, darkness, a stigma that only one who has survived it can understand. Through powerful first-hand experience, this video offers hope to those who have experienced suicide loss.
by Candace Jane Opper
Call Number: 362.28 OPPER
Orbits the death of a fourteen-year-old boy who shot and killed himself a week after Kurt Cobain’s suicide had become international news. Haunted by the hazy circumstances around her classmate’s death, Candace Jane Opper takes a kaleidoscopic lens to the cultural history of suicide in America, unearthing an invisible network and revealing the ways that no individual suicide—well-known or hardly documented—exists in a vacuum.
edited by Jennifer Landau
Call Number: 155.937 LANDAU
Losing a loved one is devastating at any age, but it can be especially trying for those going through the changes that adolescence brings. These engrossing stories offer first-person narratives of young adults coping with the death of someone close to them.
by Juliet Patterson
Call Number: 362.280973 PATTERSON 2022
In 2009, Juliet Patterson was recovering from a serious car accident when she learned her father had died by suicide. His death was part of a disturbing pattern in her family. Her father’s father had taken his own life; so had her mother’s. Over the weeks and months that followed, grieving and in physical pain, Patterson kept returning to one Why? Why had her family lost so many men, so many fathers, and what lay beneath the silence that had taken hold?
by Kate Fagan
Call Number: 616.85 FAGAN
From noted ESPN commentator and journalist Kate Fagan, the heartbreaking and vital story of college athlete Madison Holleran, whose death by suicide rocked the University of Pennsylvania campus and whose life reveals with haunting detail and uncommon understanding the struggle of young people suffering from mental illness today.
by Steve Leder
Call Number: 306.9 LEDER
As the senior rabbi of one of the largest synagogues in the world, Steve Leder has learned over and over again the many ways death teaches us how to live and love more deeply by showing us not only what is gone but also the beauty of what remains
Books on Trauma & Mental Illness
by Annie Brewster, MD with Rachel Zimmerman
Call Number: 616.89 BREWSTER 2022
For patients, care providers, and anyone who has faced a traumatic or life-changing health event: a research-backed guide to reframing your story and reclaiming your life through narrative medicine.
by Kimberly Ann Johnson
Call Number:155.9 JOHNSON
From trauma educator and somatic guide Kimberly Ann Johnson comes a cutting-edge guide for tapping into the wisdom and resilience of the body to rewire the nervous system, heal from trauma, and live fully.
by Thomas Insel, MD
Call Number: 362.20973 INSEL 2022
As director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas Insel was giving a presentation when the father of a boy with schizophrenia yelled from the back of the room, “Our house is on fire and you’re telling me about the chemistry of the paint! What are you doing to put out the fire?” Dr. Insel knew in his heart that the answer was not nearly enough. The gargantuan American mental health industry was not healing millions who were desperately in need. He left his position atop the mental health research world to investigate all that was broken—and what a better path to mental health might look like.
Books for Children
by Anastasia Higginbotham
Call Number: Easy 155.937 HIGGINBOTHAM
This forthright exploration of grief and mourning recognizes the anger, confusion, and fear that we feel about death—but refuses to succumb to banalities when talking about it. Necessary and beautiful, Death Is Stupid is an invaluable tool for talking about death, but also the possibilities for celebrating life and love.
by Stephanie Finne
Call Number: Easy 155.937
In this book, readers will learn about healthy ways to cope with the death of a loved one, the different stages of grieving, and ways to help others who are experiencing loss.
by Kenesha Sneed
Call Number: Easy SNEED
Eisha lives with her mother, a ceramic artist, who helps her make a special shape out of a piece of clay. The shape reminds Eisha of her father, of the ocean, of a lemon. As Eisha goes through her neighborhood doing errands with her mother, the piece of clay hardens and then shatters into pieces when Eisha taps it. In poignant and powerful words and pictures, Kenesha Sneed shows how Eisha learns to live with the sense of loss and of the joyful power of making something new out of what is left behind.
by Jayde Perkin
Call Number: Easy PERKIN
What does it look like to live on, even when Mom is gone? In this grounded, sensitive story, a young girl looks for ways of dealing with the anger, loneliness, and jealousy that death can create. Finding comfort in her mother’s old sweater, she discovers that grief doesn’t necessarily grow smaller over time—but little by little, day by day, we can grow into grief.
by Todd Parr
Call Number: Easy PARR
Through the lens of a pet fish who has lost his companion, Todd Parr tells a moving and wholly accessible story about saying goodbye. Touching upon the host of emotions children experience, Todd reminds readers that it's okay not to know all the answers, and that someone will always be there to support them. An invaluable resource for life's toughest moments.
by Michelle Theodore
Call Number: Easy SILVER
When her friends and family arrive at her house to sit shiva, laden with cakes and stories, she refuses to come downstairs. But the laughter and memories gradually bring her into the fold, where she is comforted by her community. By the end of the book, she feels stronger and more nourished, and she understands the beautiful tradition.