A Call to Mind: How are MG Authors Challenging the Stigmatisation of Mental Health?

Elaine Lambert asks how Middle Grade fiction can encourage openness around mental health problems.

Abstract

With primary schools experiencing a mental health crisis, there is a rising need for the conversations around mental health disorders (MHD) to become normalised so that children at this age feel seen and heard. I am interested in how these children are being represented in Middle Grade (MG) fiction. How may anthropomorphism be used in MG fiction to defamiliarize MHD to render them less threatening? How may characters who exhibit MHD be drawn in a sensitive way so that the experiences are normalised and to remove stigma? Using five contemporary MG novels, I explore how animal or toy characters with MHD may provide a safe distance between the child and the subject. There is also the suggestion that animal characters allow the child reader to reflect upon the unspoken, primal feelings, which they would otherwise be unable to articulate. I also examine how metaphor may be a useful tool when representing MHD as it provides an image onto which the feelings may be safely externalised and even accepted. I look at how multifaceted characters enable the child reader to view such experiences as normal, and only one aspect of a character arc, thereby giving the child reader hope.