Children's & YA
November 2020 - April 2021
I Will Live at Peace
by Dr. Issam Smeir, Luma Azar. Illustrator: Hanane Kai
AMAL (Hope) Series Almost 500 million children live in an area of conflict or disaster, 50 million of them were displaced. Prolonged exposure to war and uncertainty put many children in a state of ‘toxic stress’, with hugely detrimental effects. If left untreated, the long-term consequences are likely to be even greater, affecting children’s mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing for the rest of their lives. A series of nine specialized books dealing with the topic of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This Bibliotherapy series was written and designed based on PTSD therapy modality directed at children who suffer psycho-social challenges. The books are written in an adventurous style with a clinical connection that introduces the child to various symptoms, providing methods for dealing with them. It also presents coping mechanisms that help the child deal with the symptoms to have improvements throughout the stages of treatment. It also includes activities at the end of each book for caregivers to use with the child. Story 2: I Will Live at Peace Ever Since the terrible thing happened to Saleem and his family, he has been seeing nightmares which affected his ability to concentrate on his studies. And therefore, Saleem gets scared all over again and relives the incident every time he is reminded of the incident: any image, or sound, or scent, even any word. One day Saleem meets someone who has also gone through a terrible thing, and that person had felt exactly like he is feeling. From this experience, Saleem realizes that not everything that scares him is real danger and remembering the terrible incident, is by no means a re-occurrence of it. Saleem feels relieved now; he understands that he can live at peace without constant fear.
