Transactional Analysis Journal

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Book Review: Books to Help Parents Help Their Children: Cartoon Magic: How to Help
Children Discover Their Rainbows Within, Clouds and Clocks: A Story for Children Who
Soil, Gran-Gran's Best Trick: A Story for Children Who Have Lost Someone They Love,
Ignatius Finds Help: A Story about Psychotherapy for Children, Lizard Tales:
Observations about Life, Otto Learns about His Medicine: A Story about Medication for
Hyperactive Children, Robby Really Transforms: A Story about Grown-Ups Helping
Children, Sammy the Elephant & Mr. Camel: A Story to Help Children Overcome
Enuresis While Discovering Self-Appreciation, the Blammo-Surprise Book: A Story to
Help Children Overcome Fears
Barton W. Knapp
Transactional Analysis Journal 1990 20: 139
DOI: 10.1177/036215379002000210

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What is This?
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reinforced. Finally, she considers a general-
effect theory that concludes that no one
hypothesis accounts for all of the benefits at-
tributed to pet therapy.
Other chapters in the book include "Depres-
sion, Stress and Anxiety," "Psychiatric Pa-
tients," "Pets and Children," "Pets and
Adolescence," "Pets in the Family," and
"Pets and the Elderly." Each chapter
thoroughly discusses material relevant to that
topic. Other chapters are titled, "Tiffany: Por-
trait of a Canine Cotherapist," "Prison Pets, "
"The Death of a Pet," and "Pet-Facilitated
Therapy for the Physically Challenged."
This book will be of interest to any therapist
with clients from the groups just mentioned.
Excellent examples illustrate specific ap-
proaches to using pets with clients.
REFERENCES
Cusack, 0., & Smith, E. (1984) Pets and the elderly: The
therapeutic bond. New York: The Hayworth Press.
Veevers, J. E. (1985). The social meaning of pets: Alter-
native roles for companion animals. In M. B. Sussman
(Ed.), Pets and the family (pp. 11-30). New York: The
Hayworth Press.
The Lourdes of Arizona
Carlos Amantea
Mho & Mho Works, 1989
170 pp., $10.95 (paper), $17.95 (hard)
Reviewed by Barton W. Knapp
In December 1985 the Evolution of
Psychotherapy Conference was held in
Scotsdale, Arizona. More than 7,000 mental
health professionals participated, making it the
largest conference of its kind ever held. Carlos
Amantea, a writer for a small, esoteric literary
journal- The Fessenden Review-attended and
interviewed a number of participants.
The Lourdes ofArizona is Amantea's account
of some of his observations, experiences, and
responses. Although not a scholarly book,
much in it will be of interest to the general
reader as well as to the experienced therapist.
Amantea moves from scene to scene,
sometimes systematically and sometimes seem-
ingly at random, but the book is never spotty
or superficial.
This challenging, exciting, and in many ways
personal book is well worth reading. The author
blends his own experiences with excerpts from
Vol. 20, No.2, April 1990
Downloaded from tax.sagepub.com by Ana Farcas on May 22, 2014
BOOK REVIEWS
talks, lectures, interviews, and casual conversa-
tions with and by some of the most widely
recognized leaders in the field of psychotherapy,
including Minuchin, May, Laing, Rogers, and
Satir. Many of the conunents and asides made
by speakers are spontaneous responses to remarks
from colleagues or to questions and observations
from the audience. These responses often il-
luminate and challenge, and many subtle points
are raised which will spark the interest of the
reader and may become a springboard for fur-
ther exploration of issues related to the process
of psychotherapy.
BOOKS TO HELP PARENTS HELP
THEIR CIDLDREN
Cartoon Magic: How to Help Children
Discover Their Rainbows Within
Richard J. Crowley and Joyce C. Mills
Magination Press, 1989
128 pp., $11.95
Clouds and Clocks: A Story for Children
Who Soil
Matthew Galvin
Magination Press, 1989
48 pp., $15.95 (hard bound), $5.95 (paper)
Gran-Gran's Best Trick: A Story For
Children Who Have Lost Someone They
Love
L. Dwight Holden
Magination Press, 1989
48 pp., $15.95 (cloth), $5.95 (paper)
Ignatius Finds Help: A Story About
Psychotherapy For Children
Matthew Galvin
Magination Press, 1988
48 pp., $14.95 (cloth), $4.95 (paper)
Lizard Tales: Observations About Life
William R. Davis
Magination Press, 1988
128 pp., $6.95
Otto Learns About His Medicine: A Story
About Medication For Hyperactive Children
Matthew Galvin
Magination Press, 1988
32 pp., $14.95 (cloth), $5.95 (paper)
139
BOOK REVIEWS
Robby Really Transforms: A Story About
Grown-Ups Helping Children
Matthew Galvin
Magination Press, 1988
48 pp., $14.95 (cloth), $4.95 (paper)
Sammy the Elephant & Mr. Came): A Story
To Help Children Overcome Enuresis While
Discovering Self-Appreciation
Joyce C. Mills and Richard J. Crowley
Magination Press, 1988
48 pp., $15.95 (cloth), $5.95 (paper)
The Blammo-Surprise Book: A Story To
Help Children Overcome Fears
Stephen R. Lankton
Magination Press, 1988
48 pp., $15.95 (cloth), $5.95 (paper)
Reviewed by Barton W. Knapp
In 1987, Matthew Galvin, a child psychiatrist
and Assistant Professor in the Department of
Psychiatry at the Indiana University Medical
Center, wrote and privately published Ignatius
Finds Help: A"Story About Psychotherapy for
Children. It was illustrated by Sandra Ferraro,
an artist and special education teacher in In-
dianapolis. In the Forward to the present edi-
tion of this book, Galvin (1988) writes:
One morning I accompanied my young
son to the dentist's office. While we
waited, he picked up a book and asked
me to read it to him. The story we read
together had to do with a child's first visit
to the dentist. I reflected that there were
no books in the waiting room of our child
psychiatry unit having to do with a fami-
ly's first visit to a child psychotherapist.
We did provide families with fact sheets
about different kinds of emotional, men-
tal and behavioral disorders, but these did
not seem to hold a child's interest.
Later that year, Galvin approached Brun-
ner/Mazel and proposed that they publish books
similar in purpose to his-books that could be
used by parents and mental health professionals
in working with children with psychological
and medical problems. Fortunately, Brun-
ner/Mazel was responsive, and they encour-
aged Galvin to write other books. This was the
birth of Magination Press, a division of Brun-
ner/Mazel that specializes in books for children
140
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and their families dealing with the treatment of
behavioral, psychological, social, and medical
problems faced by children in today's com-
plicated world.
Each book, written by professionals ex-
perienced in working with children, is intend-
ed for children who are experiencing a specific
problem and the parents and any professionals
who might work with that child. The books are
designed to be read either by the child alone
or with parents. The books, all well illustrated,
will capture the child's attention easily.
Continuing the format of Galvin's first book,
most of the volumes in this series have a
Foreword to parents which provides
background information about the book's origin
and suggestions about how to best use a specific
book with a child. For example, in Ignatius
Finds Help, Galvin writes:
This storybook is intended to be read by
the child with or without his/her parents.
It is not a storybook for any child but
rather the child who has been referred
with his/her parents for psychotherapy.
It is meant to assist the child in having
realistic expectations about what might
happen in the course of evaluation and
treatment. Hopefully, this story may also
assist the child and family in talking
together about their first visit to a
psychotherapist. It is not intended to be
read as a statement about how
psychotherapy should be conducted for
your family and your child.
In Sammy the Elephant and Mr. Camel the
Forward is particularly comprehensive.
Created for the child who wets the bed, the
authors emphasize, "We have found that its
theme of a struggling youngster who is guided
to discover his own unique abilities can touch
the heart of any child in a universal way" (p.
xx), Rather than addressing bed-wetting direct-
ly, the story is a metaphor, the relevance of
which transcends control of bedwetting. The
following passage, in which Mills and Crowley
use some of the story-telling skills so often
identified with Milton Erickson, illustrates this
point:
I'm going to teach you something impor-
tant," said Mr. Camel. Listen very close-
ly. As you know, camels carry water for
a long, long time. I'm going to teach you
how to do that, so you can carry water
Transactional Analysis Journal
 BOOK REVIEWS

for a long time, too. And once you can
learn to tin that, you willbe able to go over
to the lake, put your trunk in, hear the
water goinginto your trunk, and hold on-
to it for a long time. You will be able to
hold onto it successfidly. Thenyou will see
yourselfwalking over to where the fire is
and putting out the fire by letting go ofthe
water at just the right time and in just the
right place. Not a hundred feetbefore, not
ten feetbefore, not evenone footbefore-
but only when you are at exactly the right
spot. Thenyou will aim your trunk and let
go of all the water.
Therapists and mental health workers who
work with children should explore their own
use of these books with child clients as well as
consider recommendingthem to the parents of
children who have the problems addressed. It
is also likely that these books will prove useful
with children who do not have these specific
problems.

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