Quincy Kadin (age 17)

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!

Since launching the book, Quincy has continued her mental health advocacy work. Over the Summer, she worked at the CDF Freedom School summer program; Quincy hosted a reading and writing workshop for students to learn how to craft a story of personal strength.

She also interned at the Child Mind Institute, where she researched the Psychological Effects of Teen Dating Violence on Adolescent Mental Health. She presented the data to CMI administration to alert them of this rising issue and participated in seminars led by mental health professionals. 

Quincy has also continued to donate hundreds of books to libraries and schools across California.