Quincy Kadin (age 17)
Los Angeles, CA
High School student, advocate & author of Frankie’s Fishy Feelings
BOOK COVER
BOOK DETAILS
Pub Date: October 10, 2023
Genre: Children’s
Page Count: 28
Format & ISBN: Hardcover, 9798218260934
ABOUT THE BOOK
Nearly 32% of adolescents in the United States have an anxiety disorder. In school, this means that kids avoid socializing and group work, have trouble speaking up around things as simple as asking to go to the bathroom, and tend to have significant attendance issues. Untreated in younger kids, anxiety develops over the years, evoloving into clinical depression, use of drugs and feeling suicidal.
That is why high school student Quincy Kadin wrote Frankie’s Fishy Feelings. The book follows Frankie, a young shark anxious about her first day of “kindersharken.” After dealing with her feelings alone for some time, Frankie decides to tell her mom about her anxiety. Frankie is enrolled in therapy and learns coping mechanisms such as counting her fingers: Thumb, index, middle, ring, little.
While the feelings don’t go away completely, Frankie learns to live with her anxiety and keep it in check. In the back of the book, readers are given a toolbox of coping mechanisms kids can use when they start to feel anxious. The book is designed as a coping tool for kids ages 4-8 – but the strategies work for any age.
Quincy hopes to get this book into the hands of as many kids as possible who will benefit from it. The book will be available in English and Spanish, and the hope is to have it available in every elementary school library in the country, starting with those that are most underfunded.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Last summer while in Johannesburg (South Africa), Quincy Kadin found herself nervous about the plane ride home to Los Angeles. When walking down the jetway, she was hit with a debilitating panic attack, which was not unusual for her, or for other kids struggling with anxiety. Once settled in her seat, her heart was able to slow down and the feeling was able to dissipate. The flight crew, however, had already decided that Quincy was unfit to fly. Asking to speak to the captain, Quincy explained that she had anticipatory flight anxiety, and that many children and adults struggle with anxiety attacks. The captain was firm in his decision and Quincy and her mother were asked to leave the plane, unwilling to empathize with the issue. Devastated, she left the plane and went to find a place to sleep.
Sitting in the airport hotel, wondering how she was going to find a way home to LA, she got to thinking about all the ways that anxiety holds kids back and keeps them from doing things that they deserve to participate in– like getting to fly home. Her anxiety was strong enough to stop a Boeing 747!
That is how Frankie’s Fishy Feelings was born!
TALKING POINTS
- Quincy can share her own personal struggle with anxiety and her mission in helping others
- Frankie’s Anxiety Toolbox: ways to help manage anxiety
- Normalizing therapy for children and teenagers post Covid
- How parents can support their children with anxiety and why that’s necessary
- Mental health resources accessible at school and beyond
- Benefits of healthy habits and the effect on easing anxiety
TIMELY TIE-INS
- Read a New Book Month – September
- Self Care Month & Self Improvement Month- September
- Buy a Book Day – September 7
- National Book Month – October
- Mental Illness Awareness Week – October 1-7
- World Mental Health Day – October 10
- Face Your Fears Day – October 14
- National Author’s Day – November 1
- National Stress Awareness Day – November 1
- National Young Readers Week – November 13-17
- Children’s Mental Health Week February 4-10
- World Read Aloud Day – February 7
- Read to Your Child Day – February 14
- Rising Star Month – March
- National Reading Month – March
- National Write Your Story Day – March 14
- I Am In Control Day – March 30
- D.E.A.R. Month (drop everything and read) – April
- Stress Awareness Month- April
- International Children’s Book Day – April 2
- Tell a Story Day – April 27
- Independent Bookstore Day – last Saturday in April
- Mental Health Awareness Month – May
- National Anxiety Month – May
- Get Caught Reading Month – May
- Children’s Book Week – May 2-8
- Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week – 7-13
- Childhood Depression Awareness Day – May 4
- National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day – May 9
BOOK DETAILS
Pub Date: May 17, 2022
Genre: Memoir / Christian Inspirational
Publisher: She Writes Press
Page Count: 304
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1647429003
Price: $15.99