Depression is hard enough to manage with the maturity of adulthood, but seems all the more severe when the sufferer is a child or young person.

This accessible, cartoon-illustrated book will help parents, teachers, social workers, health visitors, family doctors, and even some teenagers, deal with difficult and disturbing issues that lead to childhood depression.

Childhood depression is becoming more common, but it is often treatable.

The book aims to help those involved with pupils suffering from childhood depression to recognise the signs and understand the causes of the condition.

It provides practical advice and information that will empower adults to offer appropriate support and help young people regain their sparkle. We should, it says, “try listening with the heart and not just the ears...

Behind every attention-seeker is a real problem that perhaps the child needs to dramatise in order to ensure an audience.”

All in all, this is excellent value, on many levels.

Angie Rutter Specialist teacher - Buckinghamshire communication and interaction team