Healing Days: A Guide For Kids Who Have Experienced Trauma

Healing Days is a sensitive and reassuring story intended for children who have experienced trauma and covers the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that many kids have after a bad and scary thing happens.

A useful book to read with a parent or therapist, Healing Days emphasizes that children are not to blame for what happened, and that they can get help and look forward to a happy future. Kids will begin to understand their response to the trauma and learn some strategies for feeling safer, more relaxed, and more confident.

Download an extensive Note to Parents and Caregivers (PDF, 625KB), including a list of helpful resources.

Susan Farber Straus, PhD, is a clinical child psychologist who has worked for the past twenty-four years with young trauma victims, many of whom have been physically, sexually, or emotionally abused. Following her education at Cornell University and Ohio State, and internship at McLean Hospital, she worked in both private practice and residential treatment settings. She is currently Senior Psychologist at Catholic Charities Child and Family Services in Baltimore, Maryland. She and her husband have two daughters, now grown, and a granddaughter, age four.

Maria Bogade is an illustrator who creates her own unique environments and appealing characters to entertain children and adults alike. She also illustrated the Magination Press book Ben's Flying Flowers.

• 2013 Gelett Burges Award: Mind, Body and Spirit

I am thrilled to find Susan Farber Straus' very sensitive and comforting book due to its relevance in our world today. Although the story is told from the viewpoint of one child, each page features pictures of a diverse group of children of all ages acting out the narrative. This book is a fabulous tool for parents, guidance counselors and therapists to read with a child when they may suspect a trauma. And that trauma could range from abuse, an accident, school and home violence, bullying, the sudden death of a parent or sibling to natural disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes and floods that are prevalent today in the world. The book also helps children know they aren't alone and that they can find ways to heal. Maria Bogade's illustrations are warm, and comforting, and beautifully show the emotion of the children.
—Patricia Tilton, Children's Books Heal

A sensitive and reassuring story intended for children who have experienced trauma…What an OUTSTANDING resource.
—Books That Heal Kids

With Healing Days, the American Psychological Association has published an illustrated storybook that aims to help guide young victims through their emotional or physical trauma. The book tells the tale of a child who has had an unspecified "bad thing" happen. Through the story, author and psychologist Susan Farber Straus emphasizes that the victim is not to blame and introduces concepts that can help children understand that there is hope for a happy future.
—The Washington Post