As we mark five years since COVID-19 emerged in the United States, folks who work with youth are witnessing and considering the lasting impacts of the global pandemic. With all the shifts in behavior and the back-and-forth between restrictions and their reversals, the adjustments have been challenging for everyone. Meanwhile, kids are still developing and adjusting to big feelings, self-regulation, starting at a new level of school, friendship struggles, and so much more.

Fiction is a safe way to explore and cope with the unknown—one of the biggest themes at the start of the pandemic and one that seems to prevail. These stories, for all ages, are set either during or post lockdown and provide space for folks to explore how mental health and COVID-19 have lived side-by-side. Kids have needed to endlessly adapt to changes and adjustments as more information emerges about the virus. This list features representations of anxiety, grief, depression, and trauma as well as coping techniques and, most of all, hope.

Younger Readers

ATINUKE. Too Small Tola Gets Tough. illus. by Onyinye Iwu. Candlewick. 2023. ISBN 9781536229462.
Gr 2-4–Tola is the youngest of three living in one of the poorest parts of Nigeria when the pandemic hits. Tola and her grandmother are left alone with little money and begin to grow hungry as lockdown continues. Tola is small but mighty and takes a job as a housemaid to help her family. Readers will feel the grief of Tola’s separation from her family and grandmother as the young girl navigates keeping them fed and safe.

DE SUZA, Jane. When Impossible Happens. Putnam. 2023. ISBN 9780593530122.
Gr 2-4–When Swara, who is almost nine years old and lives in India, loses her grandmother to COVID-19, she struggles to cope while also adjusting to online school and sheltering in place. Swara moves through sadness, denial, and confusion while still holding on to her brightness. De Suza sensitively presents an authentic nine-year-old voice.

LUCIANOVIC, Stephanie V.W. Hummingbird Season. Bloomsbury. 2024. ISBN 9781547612741.
Gr 2-4–This novel in verse follows elementary student Archie through the start of the pandemic. Archie struggles to find connection and cope with big feelings as he spends the first three seasons of the pandemic doing remote school. His brother thrives at remote school and stays connected with friends online but worries about keeping Archie safe because he has asthma. A lyrical exploration of mental health through the contrast of the two brothers and their attempts to find hope.

MILES, Brenda S. Avocado Feels a Pit Worried. illus. by Monika Filipina. APA/Magination. 2022. ISBN 9781433838620.
PreS-Gr 2–Avi the avocado worries a lot and feels anxious, and this book offers readers a unique view of taking steps towards doing scary things. The reader’s note in the back matter includes a reflection for parents on how reassurance isn’t always the best strategy when facing an unknown out of your family’s control, like a global pandemic, and that focusing on what can be done at home can be helpful.

Middle Grade

GREENWALD, Lisa. Fortune Tellers. HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen. 2024. ISBN 9780063255852.
Gr 4-7–Three girls who were best friends are separated and their friendship ends through a combination of middle grade friend drama and their school closing due to the pandemic. A little bit of magic from the friends’ beloved old fortune tellers could help bring them back together. This title explores the impacts of COVID-19 on youth living in cities and how that shifted their schooling and friendships, with pandemic concerns woven in alongside the worries that can arise as kids enter middle school. Each girl expresses symptoms of anxiety and practices different types of self-care. The girls cue white; two are Jewish.

HARRELL, Rob. Popcorn. Dial. 2024. ISBN 9780593697924.
Gr 4-7–A post-lockdown story following seventh grader Andrew, who lives with anxiety and OCD, as he moves through picture day at school. He has a fear of germs, and hopes he can protect his grandmother. The narrative uses text and comics to depict going to therapy and to demonstrate not only how anxiety feels mentally and emotionally, but in the body itself. Harrell also works in how Andrew uses coping skills. The combination of art and humor make this a stellar resource for youth understanding of anxiety and OCD in a fiction format. Andrew presents as white.

IRELAND, Justina. Tales from Cabin 23: The Boo Hag Flex. HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray. 2024. ISBN 9780063287822.
Gr 3-5–When 12-year-old Tasha’s mom passes away from COVID-19, she is sent to live with her father and grandmother, both of whom she has never met, in a trailer park. While coping with the grief of losing her mother, she stumbles upon something spooky that is killing the park’s older residents and has to investigate to protect her grandmother. Using fantasy and horror as a way to talk about loss and how things may not always be as they seem, Ireland opens up conversations about fear of the unknown in our ever-changing world. Tasha is described as having warm brown skin like her father.

SASS, A. J. Just Shy of Ordinary. Little, Brown. 2024. ISBN 9780316506175.
Gr 4 Up–Shai, a 13-year-old nonbinary kid, makes a big plan to go to public school after the lockdown and after being homeschooled their whole life. The big plan is in hopes of helping the trichotillomania, or hair pulling, that they are keeping a secret from their mom. The pulling started during the pandemic when their mom lost her job and they had to move in with friends. Shai finds support in their friends and family as well as therapy as they navigate their new normal. Shai is Jewish and white.

YANG, Kelly. New from Here. S. & S. 2022. ISBN 9781534488304.
Gr 4-7–Ten-year-old Knox, who has a Chinese American mother and white American father, is living with his family in Hong Kong when COVID-19 hits. His mom brings the family back to California, leaving their dad behind. She loses her job, his dad’s salary is cut, and the family has no health insurance. The kids must enroll in the local public school, which doesn’t have support, like an occupational therapist, for Knox’s ADHD. This book presents the financial impacts of the pandemic on families and how that affected access to therapies; it also shows the power of family and a great teacher for success during distance learning.

Young Adult

BROWNE, Mahogany L. A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe. Crown. Mar. 2025. ISBN 9780593486474.
Gr 8 Up–In a mixture of prose, poetry, and short stories, this work follows interwoven threads of folks living in New York City, from the lockdown to the vaccine rollout. The diverse cast of voices reflects on experiencing poverty during the pandemic, and how young people living with depression and anxiety helped their families survive, with limits to the amount of support struggling social workers were able to provide.

DIEDERICH, Phillippe. Lalo Lespérance Never Forgot. Dutton. 2023. ISBN 9780593354285.
Gr 5-8–Middle schooler Lalo, who is of Mexican and Haitian heritage, explores his Florida low-income apartment complex with great imagination during lockdown. He struggles with virtual schooling. When he was in school he had accommodations for memory loss related to ADHD and trauma, but it’s not the same online. Lalo’s difficulties with memory didn’t stem from the pandemic but provide an interesting in-between time for him to explore what he can remember.

JOHNSON, Kim. Invisible Son. Random. 2023. ISBN 9780593482100.
Gr 9 Up–A mystery set just before and during lockdown, following Andre, a wrongly accused Black boy who leaves juvie and discovers that Eric, his friend who was involved in the crime that sent Andre there, is missing. As Andre investigates, he discovers there is more to the perfect white family that adopted Eric, who is Black. The story explores depression, suicide, trauma, and abuse and provides a look at how families sheltering in place negatively impacted those with unsafe home environments.

LOCKINGTON, Mariama J. Forever Is Now. Farrar. 2023. ISBN 9780374388881.
Gr 9 Up–Sadie’s story is set after she learns to cope through the pandemic, being Black in America in 2020, and experiencing climate change fear amid increased natural disasters. She has an anxiety diagnosis, but after being dumped by her girlfriend and seeing police brutality firsthand, she finds herself unable to leave her home and is diagnosed with agoraphobia. This novel in verse provides insight into how Sadie feels and shows the power of therapy, family, and community support in mental health care.

LUKOFF, Kyle. A World Worth Saving. Dial. 2025. ISBN 9780593618981.
Gr 6-9–This fantasy story based in Jewish mythology follows A, a 14-year-old trans panromantic boy in a post-lockdown world. He hasn’t been allowed to return to in-person school because his parents fear it would further influence his trans identity, which they don’t support. A has panic attacks and uses breathing and naming words in alphabetical order to help. The fantastical elements help create distance from the pain in this story, allowing for a unique exploration of panic attacks and the impacts of pandemic isolation.

MCBRIDE, Amber. Gone Wolf. Feiwel & Friends. 2023. ISBN 9781250850492.
Gr 5 Up–A 12-year-old Black girl, known as Inmate Eleven, lives in the year 2111 after the pandemic of 2020 divided the United States into two parts, and the virus spread not only illness but also hate and fear. Meanwhile, in 2022, Imogen lives with trauma from racist violence and the pandemic. McBride explores generational trauma, loss, long-term isolation, the fear of being immunosuppressed, and anxiety.

REYNOLDS, Jason. Ain’t Burned All the Bright. illus. by Jason Griffin. Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy. 2022. ISBN 9781534439467.
Gr 7 Up–A combination of poetry and art that represents one Black family’s experiences during racial upheaval and the early pandemic. The conclusion of each section reminds readers to breathe, depicted with smelling a flower and blowing out a birthday candle. Furthermore, the work can be interpreted as a reminder of self-care as the narrator practices gratitude and questions his mother’s choice in continuing to watch the news.

Taylor Skorski is an academic librarian in Massachusetts after over 13 years in youth services.