Here are 100 books that Chicken Soup for the Soul fans have personally recommended if you like
Chicken Soup for the Soul.
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I started as a designer, patented inventor, and creator in the fashion, toy, and film industries, but after the early diagnosis of my young children on the spectrum, both “late talkers,” diagnosed with multiple disorders including apraxia, I entered the world of nonprofit, research, and advocacy. I am the founder of the nonprofit Cherab Foundation where I've been outreaching for over twenty years. I've hosted numerous conferences including the first for apraxia overseen by a medical director from NIH who reviewed my protocol – the use of fish oils as a therapeutic intervention, published research on my patented nutritional intervention IQed Smart Nutrition, and co-authored the book The Late Talker to share my proven protocol and help others achieve the best possible results for their communication impaired children.
Sensory processing disorder or SPD is a difficult condition to explain as it can involve one or more of any of our senses, so can present differently in each child. It would be considered one of the neurological “soft signs” meaning that a diagnosis of SPD typically means there is more going on than a simple developmental lag. Today the majority of children diagnosed with apraxia also have coexisting soft signs such as SPD, hypotonia (low tone), and/or motor deficits in the body. It’s important if apraxia is diagnosed or suspected to take your child to either a pediatric neurologist or developmental pediatrician to confirm or rule out soft signs in the body.
When Tanner was little and his only “words” were “mmm” or “ma” we were at the Chelsea Piers in NYC. Tanner had a sensory meltdown and if you’ve never seen one it can be very intense. His…
The groundbreaking book that explains Sensory Processing Difference (SPD)–and presents a drug-free approach that offers hope for parents–now revised and updated.
Does your child exhibit…
Over-responsivity–or under-responsivity–to touch or movement? A child with SPD may be a “sensory avoider,” withdrawing from touch, refusing to wear certain clothing, avoiding active games–or he may be a “sensory disregarder,” needing a jump start to get moving.
Over-responsivity–or under-responsivity–to sounds, sights taste, or smell? She may cover her ears or eyes, be a picky eater, or seem oblivious to sensory cues.
Cravings for sensation? The “sensory craver” never gets enough of certain sensations, e.g.,…
Archy was living out of the dumpsters of the apartment complex when Louise moved in. She noticed him. He noticed her too.
It took months to earn his trust. He stayed for one year. What happened in that year—and in the years following his death—became the story she spent thirty-five…
I started as a designer, patented inventor, and creator in the fashion, toy, and film industries, but after the early diagnosis of my young children on the spectrum, both “late talkers,” diagnosed with multiple disorders including apraxia, I entered the world of nonprofit, research, and advocacy. I am the founder of the nonprofit Cherab Foundation where I've been outreaching for over twenty years. I've hosted numerous conferences including the first for apraxia overseen by a medical director from NIH who reviewed my protocol – the use of fish oils as a therapeutic intervention, published research on my patented nutritional intervention IQed Smart Nutrition, and co-authored the book The Late Talker to share my proven protocol and help others achieve the best possible results for their communication impaired children.
When you have a child with a severe communication impairment, they probably are in therapy almost every day of their life. Too often, I’ve found parents forget children with special needs are still children. While appropriate speech therapy is critical for apraxia, children learn through play, and too often the importance of play is underestimated. What I love about The New Language of Toys is it shows us, the parents (as well as therapists) how to take typical toys found around the house to use as fun therapy tools to help bring your child a voice.
I used to work in toy design prior to being a parent so being able to use toys as therapy for speech is amazing. In addition, it helps the child’s self-esteem when you can teach them how to play, something that doesn’t always come naturally to a percentage of children with special needs.…
I always intended to be a fiction writer (and have written ten novels, both YA and adult) but my oldest child is autistic, which led to my meeting and then collaborating on several non-fiction books with Dr. Lynn Kern Koegel, who’s an expert in the autism field, currently at Stanford University. Finding myself writing non-fiction wasn’t the only way having an autistic child changed my life. When my son was first diagnosed, I didn’t know what that meant for his future, and I desperately wanted information—and even entertainment—that made me feel inspired and hopeful. I needed to find my way toward feeling positive and not anxious, for both our sakes.
So, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I haven’t read this entire book, but I did read the original article that the book came out of and other articles by and about the Suskinds.
Ron Suskind did exactly what Lynn Koegel and I believe all parents should do: he observed his son’s interest and used it as a bridge for communication and connection.
Disney was a huge part of our family life when our kids were little (and still plays a role in our lives today since one of my sons is a children’s television writer and another one has his own theme park video channel), so I love that it was Disney movies that brought the Suskinds together.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind tells the story of how his autistic son was able to regain the ability to speak through the medium of Disney animated films.
"Ron Suskind's "Life, Animated" is an extraordinary saga of an exceptional boy from a remarkable family and their compelling journey through autism."-David Royko, Chicago Tribune
Imagine being trapped inside a Disney movie and having to learn about life mostly from animated characters dancing across a screen of color. A fantasy? A nightmare? This is the real-life story of Owen Suskind, the son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind and his wife,…
Archy was living out of the dumpsters of the apartment complex when Louise moved in. She noticed him. He noticed her too.
It took months to earn his trust. He stayed for one year. What happened in that year—and in the years following his death—became the story she spent thirty-five…
I started as a designer, patented inventor, and creator in the fashion, toy, and film industries, but after the early diagnosis of my young children on the spectrum, both “late talkers,” diagnosed with multiple disorders including apraxia, I entered the world of nonprofit, research, and advocacy. I am the founder of the nonprofit Cherab Foundation where I've been outreaching for over twenty years. I've hosted numerous conferences including the first for apraxia overseen by a medical director from NIH who reviewed my protocol – the use of fish oils as a therapeutic intervention, published research on my patented nutritional intervention IQed Smart Nutrition, and co-authored the book The Late Talker to share my proven protocol and help others achieve the best possible results for their communication impaired children.
Unlike parents who have a child that is born deaf or blind where protocols are in place by law, if you have a child with a communication impairment like apraxia, you have to advocate a lot for your child or they may not receive the therapies and placement that are appropriate for them. To make it even more complicated, there is no one set classification for a child with apraxia. If your child is deaf or has a diagnosis such as autism, the school system has a classification for those diagnoses. For just about any other communication impairment your child can be classified from “other health impaired” to “developmentally delayed” Some schools may have communication or speech impairments as a classification, but not all.
This book is a start to helping you learn how to become an advocate for your late talker child. After advocating for both of my special…
Drawing on decades of experience, a special education attorney and sought-after special education advocate help parents of students with disabilities navigate their school systems to get the services they need for their children.
Parents will find no other book on special education like Your Special Education Rights. Julie and Jennifer demystify the federal laws that govern the rights of public school children with disabilities and explain how school districts often ignore or circumvent these laws. They pull the curtain back on the politics of special education, exposing truths that school districts don't want you to know, such as the fact…
As a healer and a bruja who is also a journalist who has covered stories about anything from politics and entertainment to wellness and traditional healing modalities—I enjoy educating people about the different ways they can approach their own healing journey. I’m the founder of The Bratty Brujita Botánica, a metaphysical shop offering products and services that are dedicated to helping folks discover their own magic. I’ve been featured in Freeform, Refinery29, Cosmopolitan, and Allure, for my work. I’ve also written on the topic of brujeria, spiritual cleansing, and ancestral veneration for outlets like Refinery29 and Popsugar.
I really enjoyed the way Karen Rose connected herbs, the body’s systems, and the Orisha pantheon. I was very interested in learning about herbalism through the lens of non-Western spirituality, and it sent me on an inward journey I’m still riding out today.
This book has been a great resource for me in terms of getting my feet wet, making at-home remedies, and learning the body systems. I also loved the beautiful anecdotes and ancestral wisdom. This is a textbook that makes herbal healing and plant magic accessible.
Discover how to utilize the magic of plants and diasporic ancestral practices in remedies and ritual.
What if plants could be used to guide the process of transformation? What if you knew which rituals and plants could be partnered to alleviate physical symptoms or heal emotional and spiritual imbalances? How can plants help you stand in your power, strengthen your intuition, and provide protection? In The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism, leading Black herbalist Karen Rose provides the answers you seek.
This guide to harnessing the power of plants is a practical tool for working through the symptoms of…
My first memory is of my father telling me about the cosmos, the Big Bang, and how the sun would burn out one day, expanding so big it would swallow the Earth. This memory haunted my dreams and waking hours, instilling a fascination with the life and death cycles of everything. Now I’m an artist, writer, educator and somatic coach devoted to helping people talk about and honor the things western culture doesn’t create space for–big emotions, messy love and the gifts of dying.
I was raised by a family and culture that taught me nothing about grief, mourning, or honoring the great heartbreaks of aliveness. This book raised me and taught me about the importance of ritual and community tending to our grief.
It taught me that naming the pain of the world is an act of love and that helping others do the same is a responsibility we all carry. I trained with Francis Weller years after reading this book and was so affirmed by sharing space with a person who embodies what he teaches in a deep and embodied way.
"It blew me away. I underlined things on nearly every page." —Anderson Cooper, All There Is
The Wild Edge of Sorrow offers hope and healing for a profoundly fractured world—and a pathway home to the brightness, pains, and gifts of being alive.
Introducing the 5 gates of grief, psychotherapist Francis Weller explores how we move through the waters of grief and loss in a culture so fundamentally detached from the needs of the soul.
• The first gate recognizes—and invites us to accept—the painful truth that everything we love, we will lose. With this acceptance comes beauty and responsibility—and an…
I’m now in my 25th year as professor of eastern philosophy at Santa Monica College. One of the things I love most about teaching this subject is the unconventional nature of the way I'm able to approach it. Unlike many other academic subjects, it lends itself to an experiential counterpart, so it’s a joy to share a few minutes of meditation before getting into any lectures or discussions. I share from my own personal experiences in different styles of meditation, which come from years of trainings in Kundalini and Hatha Yoga, as well as from my background in Zen.
This is part of an anthology of collected talks by the beloved Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda, which also includes Man's Eternal Quest and Journey to Self-Realization. They are what I keep in my own nightstand and what I open during times of trouble. And this one is my favorite of the three.
Paramahansa Yogananda is direct and loving in tone. This is the kind of book that doesn’t need to be read at once—you can open up to any page and find solace for any plight. The theme revolves around the importance of dropping the self-sabotaging bad habits that keep us from true joy.
Paramahansa Yogananda's Collected Talks and Essays present in-depth discussions of the fast range of inspiring and universal truths that have captivated millions in his Autobiography of a Yogi. Readers will find these talks alive with the unique blend of all-embracing wisdom, encouragement, and love for humanity that have made the author one of our era's most revered and trusted guides to the spiritual life.
In this anthology of talks, Paramahansa Yogananda speaks to the deepest needs of the human heart and soul. He shows how we can meet the daily challenges to our physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual well-being by…
One piece of advice I give my kids is to listen to people who are wrong. One of two things happen: you’ll have to define, refine, and explore your personal positions in order to articulate why they’re wrong; or you discover you’re wrong and you grow. I spent 25 years in a church that made no sense to me. That caused me to read and think about why I didn’t believe what they said was “absolute truth.” My writing is the result of a long soul-searching experience that has led me to a place I’m comfortable with and others are finding comfort in the wisdom of The Infinite Jeff.
I stumbled onto the audiobook for this when I was commuting an hour and forty-five minutes one way. It was so powerful and deep that I ended up listening to it a second time. Tagore’s spiritual wisdom spans all the major religions. He talks about Christianity as passionately and profoundly as he talks about Buddhism or Hinduism and his wisdom resonates deeply at the core of who you are.
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
As a nurse, survivor, intuitive, and healer, when ministering to the sick, the injured, the traumatized, and the dying, I saw, sensed, and gained a deeper understanding of who we are as human and spiritual beings. I also witnessed the emotional, physical, spiritual, and psychological scars trauma leaves on survivors. How can we hold onto hope during challenging times? We need to expand our consciousness about the inhumanity that exists in our world. Stop saying, “How can that be? I don’t believe it.” We are on a human and spiritual journey to who we are. Stories are told to heal, to inform, to own our truths, and to offer hope.
There is no other book that I have gifted as often to friends. In The InvitationOriah challenges us to recognize what we ache for in this life. Her words encourage us to embrace our human experiences and be open to possibilities. She writes about finding hope in obstacles and connecting to the beauty in life. As a poet I was initially drawn to “The Invitation,” a poem Oriah wrote, which led to her writing this book. Her words inspire!
Shared by word of mouth, e-mailed from reader to reader, recited over the radio, and read aloud at thousands of retreats and conferences, "The Invitation" has changed the lives of people everywhere. In this bestselling book, Oriah expands on the wisdom found within her beloved prose poem, which presents a powerful challenge to all who long to live an authentic life. In a world of endless small talk, constant traffic jams, and overburdened schedules, "The Invitation" opens the door to a new way of life - a way of intimacy, honesty, and peace with ourselves, others, and the world around…
I grew up with low self-esteem. As an introvert, I found it difficult to make friends in school and I feel I wasn’t good enough for others. Even when I had my first job, I found myself tearing up in the restroom cubicle one day, feeling defective and unable to fit in. That set me off on a journey to improve my self-esteem. I began reading a lot and taking courses on this topic. For years, I felt more confident and worthy. However, it wasn’t until I had a depression that I was truly transformed. After I recovered, I become committed to living peacefully.
I have read almost 40 books from Thich Nhat Hanh and every time I read his books, I feel a deep sense of peace.
I recommend this book to deal with the inner critic because it is about transforming suffering. Instead of running away from our emotional pain, the book teaches us to be present with it. I love how the author uses lotus as an analogy to help us see the beneficial aspects of all things.
In his book, he wrote “We need to have mud for lotuses to grow. Without mud, there can be no lotus.” This reminds me to not reject the inner critic, but use it as an excellent teacher for my own growth.
The secret to happiness is to acknowledge and transform suffering, not to run away from it. Here, Thich Nhat Hanh offers practices and inspiration transforming suffering and finding true joy.
Thich Nhat Hanh acknowledges that because suffering can feel so bad, we try to run away from it or cover it up by consuming. We find something to eat or turn on the television. But unless we’re able to face our suffering, we can’t be present and available to life, and happiness will continue to elude us.
Nhat Hanh shares how the practices of stopping, mindful breathing, and deep concentration…
