Book Review: Leash the Anxiety Beast with “Name and Tame”

 Anxiety anyone? Um, we didn’t order it – but here it is.

We can empower our kids and ourselves to leash that anxiety beast with Summer Batte’s recent release (2021), “Name & Tame Your Anxiety” from Free Spirit Publishing.

I am so excited for local parent, friend, and editor Summer Batte, who has written and released a user-friendly book with practical tips and science-based information for facing anxiety. Parents and young readers will be grateful for this resource.

Reading this guide is like having a caring support gently nudging you onward with useful tips and explanations. Batte’s thorough and compassionate book goes a long way to help readers tame the anxiety beast and move forward better equipped with strategies to bolster courage in day-to-day life.

This timely manual gives suggestions young people can use right away to try to manage the heavy demands of coping. Based on science with a user-friendly layout, the book’s design offers readers either a start to finish read or a quick dip and flip for valuable information.

With “Name and Tame Your Anxiety”, young readers benefit from practical tips in straightforward language that doesn’t talk down to them. Its mantra-like title creates a friendly opening into a guide through the murkiness of anxiety to come out enlightened and empowered with sensible ideas. 

The step-by-step presentation is well-organized and user-friendly with ample sidebars, bulleted lists, and mini-scenarios that give readers nuggets of insight each time they engage with the book. As an educational therapist who works with students facing varying levels of anxiety, this is a resource I will keep handy to share with parents and students alike.

Check this book out if anxiety is lingering in your house and getting a grip on your kids’ mindsets. It can be tamed – and “naming” emotions in the moment is well-established as a potent strategy to do so.

Name & Tame” features:

  • Highlights, callouts, and cartoons all make this an attractive book as soon as you pick it up. 
  • Specific tips for things you can do on your own for sleep and exercise, as well as how professional supports for therapy and meds work bring in a full array of options for anxiety management.
  • Sense of a caring person walking side by side, as a guide through the murky waters of anxiety. 
  • Specific and strategies laid out with easy-to-read bullets, highlights, and sidebars to help clear the clouds.
  • Support that can take the reader step by step into getting a leash on the beast!
  • Even the catchy “Name and Tame” title is a useful mantra – but don’t be fooled – there is solid neuroscience and cognitive behavioral therapy practices as well as practical steps to take behind the memorable rhyme.

From the Publisher:

Name and Tame Your Anxiety: A Kid’s Guide

Summer Batte

ISBN 978-1-63198-620-8
Middle Grade Nonfiction/Mental Health $14.99, paperback, 144 pp., 2 color, 6ʺ x 9ʺ Ages 9–13

Media Contact: Amanda Shofner, publicity@freespirit.com