Sometimes Bipolar Bear finds himself at the bright North Pole or the dreary South Pole. Using tools he finds either on his own or with the help of his family, he's able to make his way back to his home. Cut out the sunglasses and the flashlight in the back to get involved, and if you flip through the pages quickly, you just may find a nice surprise!

Eli the polar bear learns to deal with his bipolar disorder.

The Bipolar Bear Family is a story about a young cub who struggles to understand his mother's behavior and her subsequent diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder. The story of The Bipolar Bear Family helps children of bipolar parents address such questions as: Is this my fault? Is it contagious? Can I fix it? According to the National Institute for Mental Health, Bipolar Disorder affects more than 2 million American adults. Further, we know that the dynamics of Mental Illness closely mirror the dynamics of alcoholism and addiction in its impact on the family system. By compassionately educating parents and children, the author hopes to make a life-long difference for these courageous families.

This book chronicles bipolar illness through the eyes of a 7-year-old "cub" of a bipolar mother. He takes us through the heartache, frustration and embarrassment he experiences, but poignantly shares his compassion for his mother. When the cub finds the courage to communicate his basic needs, mama bear finds some surprising and creative ways to help her child cope. The cheerful drawings and heartwarming ending will delight all ages and give parents, children and the caregiving community helpful ideas and a bear-sized heart. Many thanks to Northern Essex Community College and Children's Literature Professor Janet Clark

Fictional story about Brandon, a young boy living with bipolar disorder. Readers learn about his symptoms, fears, and treatment from a child's viewpoint.

"Glorious...one of the best memoirs I've read in years...a tragicomic gem about family, class, race, justice, and the spectacular weirdness of Wichita. [McDermott] can move from barely controlled hilarity to the brink of rage to aching tenderness in a single breath." -- Marya Hornbacher, New York Times Book Review Zack McDermott, a 26-year-old Brooklyn public defender, woke up one morning convinced he was being filmed, Truman Show-style, as part of an audition for a TV pilot. Every passerby was an actor; every car would magically stop for him; everything he saw was a cue from "The Producer" to help inspire the performance of a lifetime. After a manic spree around Manhattan, Zack, who is bipolar, was arrested on a subway platform and admitted to Bellevue Hospital. So begins the story of Zack's freefall into psychosis and his desperate, poignant, often hilarious struggle to claw his way back to sanity. It's a journey that will take him from New York City back to his Kansas roots and to the one person who might be able to save him, his tough, big-hearted Midwestern mother, nicknamed the Bird, whose fierce and steadfast love is the light in Zack's dark world. Before his odyssey is over, Zack will be tackled by guards in mental wards, run naked through cornfields, receive secret messages from the TV, befriend a former Navy Seal and his talking stuffed monkey, and see the Virgin Mary in the whorls of his own back hair. But with the Bird's help, he just might have a shot at pulling through, starting over, and maybe even meeting a partner who can love him back, bipolar and all. Introducing an electrifying new voice, Gorilla and the Bird is a raw and unforgettable account of a young man's unraveling and the relationship that saves him.

In When Mystical Creatures Attack!, Ms. Freedman’s high school English class writes essays in which mystical creatures resolve the greatest sociopolitical problems of our time. Students include Janice Gibbs, “a feral child with excessive eyeliner and an anti-authoritarian complex that would be interesting were it not so ill-informed,” and Cody Splunk, an aspiring writer working on a time machine. Following a nervous breakdown, Ms. Freedman corresponds with Janice and Cody from an insane asylum run on the capitalist model of cognitive-behavioral therapy, where inmates practice water aerobics to rebuild their Psychiatric Credit Scores. The lives of Janice, Cody, and Ms. Freedman are revealed through in-class essays, letters, therapeutic journal exercises, an advice column, a reality show television transcript, a diary, and a Methodist women’s fundraising cookbook. (Recipes include “Dark Night of the Soul Food,” “Render Unto Caesar Salad,” and “Valley of the Shadow of Death by Chocolate Cake.”) In “Virtue of the Month,” the ghost of Ms. Freedman’s mother argues that suicide is not a choice. In “The Un-Game,” Janice’s chain-smoking nursing home charge composes a dirty limerick. In “The Hall of Old-Testament Miracles,” wax figures of Bible characters come to life, hungry for Cody’s flesh. Set against a South Texas landscape where cicadas hum and the air smells of taco stands and jasmine flowers, these stories range from laugh-out-loud funny to achingly poignant. This surreal, exuberant collection mines the dark recesses of the soul while illuminating the human heart.