Resources for Children:
Anxiety & Worry

These recommendations mainly focus on managing anxiety and worry.

The feelings icons on the right indicate where the resource might also be useful for managing different emotions.

  • Anxiety
  • Anger
  • Sadness

Hey Warrior – Karen Young

This book taps into understanding how anxiety can be experienced in the mind and body. The story depicts anxiety as a mixture of uncomfortable thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, encouraging the reader to recognise how anxiety  feels in the body. This useful resource helps to empower young readers by broadening their understanding of anxiety and enabling them to be better equipped to manage anxiety.

Recommended for ages 5+.

Huge Bag of Worries – Virginia Ironside

A helpful story for children who tend to worry frequently, The Huge Bag of Worries looks at the different outcomes of sharing worries and anxious thoughts, as opposed to trying to hide or ignore them. The story promotes the idea that sharing feelings is a way of gaining power over these feelings, and explains that avoiding feelings often intensifies them or makes them last longer.

Recommended for ages 5-9.

Be Mindful of Monsters - Lauren Stockly

This lovely, illustrated story explains the importance of accepting emotions, rather than avoiding them, including being able to sit with the difficult, intense emotions that some children experience. Written by therapist Lauren Stockly, this book features mindfulness strategies, which can be useful in helping kids decipher what their feelings may be communicating. 

Recommended for  ages 5-10.

The Panic Button Book - Tammy Kirkness

This engaging book offers young readers an easy to follow guide to learn how to identify, name and manage difficult emotions. The book provides a range of short exercises that can be useful tools to cope with feelings such as anxiety or panic when they arise.  A great, resource to help develop practical skills to work through, and gain some relief from big, uncomfortable feelings. 

Recommended for ages 7-11.

Worry Tree – Marianne Musgrove

This book tells the story of Juliet, a girl with many worries in life, at school and at home. In her new bedroom, she discovers a painting of a tree, which her Nanna recalls from her past, calling it the “Worry Tree”.  The story follows Juliet as she develops new strategies to manage her worries, such as giving her worries to the “Worry Tree”, encouraging children to share worries rather than carrying the weight of them alone.

Recommended for ages 8+.

Listening to my Body – Gabi Garcia

This book focuses on identifying and naming the physical sensations that are often experienced with difficult emotions. It includes a range of examples of the different physical sensations that children may experience, and provides vocabulary that children can use to clearly share their feelings. There are also a number of useful practise exercises that children and parents can work through together. 

Recommended for  ages 7-12.

Guts – Raina Telgmeier

This graphic novel is based on the author’s childhood experience with anxiety and fear. It describes the intensity in which anxiety can be felt in the body, in this case, the main character experiences horrific stomach aches resulting from ongoing stress in her life. The story normalises the fact that everyone has fears or anxieties at times and that sharing these with trusted adults or friends is an effective coping strategy.

Recommended for  ages 8-12. 

Outsmarting Worry - Dr Dawn Huebner

This engaging, illustrated book for older children includes evidence based, psychology strategies to help children develop skills to combat worry and anxiety. The book encourages children to acknowledge difficult feelings or symptoms they may experience, rather than fearing or avoiding them. Also included are a range of methods to help children cope, along with tips for parents to provide support. 

Recommended for ages 9-13.

You may also be interested in

  • Young, K. (2017). Hey Warrior. Hey Sigmund.
    Hey Warrior. (n.d.). Booktopia. https://www.booktopia.com.au/hey-warrior-karen-young/book/9780648488804.html
    Hey Warrior. (n.d.). Social Mind. https://www.socialmind.com.au/product/hey-warrior/
    Ironside, V. (1996). The Huge Bag of Worries. (F. Rogers, Illus.). Hachette Children's Books
    Huge Bag of Worries. (n.d.). Booktopia. https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-huge-bag-of-worries-virginia-ironside/book/9780340903179.html
    The Huge Bag of Worries. (n.d.). Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35177419
    Stockly, L. (2020). Be Mindful of Monsters. (E. Surrey, Illus.). Bumble BLS LLC.
    Be Mindful of Monsters. (n.d.). Booktopia. https://www.booktopia.com.au/be-mindful-of-monsters-lauren-stockly/book/9781953094001.html
    Kirkness, T. (2021). The Panic Button Book for Kids. Murdoch Books.
    The Panic Button Book for Kids. (n.d.). Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60480113-the-panic-button-book-for-kids
    The Panic Button Book for Kids. (n.d.). The Calm Store. https://calmstore.com.au/product/the-panic-button-for-kids/
    Musgrove, M. (2012). The Worry Tree. Random House Australia.
    The Worry Tree. (n.d.). Penguin. https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-worry-tree-9781742757421
    The Worry Tree. (n.d.). Booktopia. https://www.booktopia.com.au/search.epkeywords=worry+tree&productType=917504
    Garcia, G. (2019). Listening to My Body. Skinned Knee Publishing.
    Listening to My Body. (n.d.). Gabi Garcia Books. https://gabigarciabooks.com/products
    Talgmeier, R. (2019). Guts. Scholastic Inc.
    Guts. (n.d.). Booktopia. https://www.booktopia.com.au/search.ep?keywords=guts&productType=917504
    Guts. (n.d.). Readings. https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781743832684/9781743832684#
    Huebner, D. (2018). Outsmarting Worry. (M. Suggs, Illus.). Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
    Outsmarting Worry. (n.d.). Booktopia. https://booktopia.com.au/outsmarting-worry-dawn-huebner/book/9781785927829.html
    Outsmarting Worry. (n.d.). Dawn Huebner, PhD. https://www.dawnhuebnerphd.com/outsmarting-worry-managing-anxiety/