Frankie's Fishy Feelings

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, evolving 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.