ALBANY — Facing the beast within can be the hardest one of all, but local New York Times bestselling writer Mark Cheverton has a new series designed to help young readers face their anxiety head-on.
A prolific author of 27 books with more in the works for the new year, Cheverton’s story as a writer had an unconventional start. Originally from California, Cheverton moved with his wife to the East Coast and became a teacher. After leaving teaching, he worked for G.E. as a physicist.
“Then I made the logical transition from physicist to becoming a children’s book author,” he quipped.
In his private life, Cheverton harbored a passion for writing. He published four books that were what he called “catastrophic failures.” After a disturbing incident online, a new idea for a story was planted.
“My son was cyberbullied while he was playing Minecraft. It was very traumatic for him,” Cheverton said. “My son thought it was his fault that he was bullied. I didn’t want that to stick. I wrote a story in Minecraft because my son was obsessed with Minecraft. I thought that would be a great way to teach the lesson.”
Cheverton decided to self-publish the book on Amazon for fun. The book found immense success, selling 50,000 copies in five months and hitting number 29 on Amazon’s Top 100. Publishers reached out, and 24 books later, Cheverton had written a saga of stories — all set within the pixelated world of Minecraft.
“But as I was writing these Minecraft novels, my son was struggling with anxiety and had a really hard time going to school,” said Cheverton. “A few years ago, I asked him, ‘What did these daily panic attacks feel like inside?’ I knew what they looked like on the outside because I had to see them every day. They were terrible to watch. But the level of hopelessness and dread that he described for me was shocking.”
A new idea for a series was forming in Cheverton’s mind, and he struck gold with the “Cameron Poole” series: fantasy books for 8-18 year olds meant to appeal to fans of “Gremlins,” “Stranger Things,” and “Percy Jackson,” all while telling a story that is uniquely personal for individuals with anxiety.
He wrote the first book in the “Cameron Poole” series, “Facing the Beast Within,” giving the character his son’s anxiety symptoms and including the techniques that helped his son with his anxiety.
“I thought I needed to share his story so that other kids would know that other people are experiencing this and they’re not alone,” he continued.
Kristi Holl, a teacher in Louisville, Neb., met Cheverton over X (formerly Twitter) in 2016, while on a quest to find writing resources for her fourth- and fifth-grade classroom.
“There was a girl in my fourth-grade class last year who was silently struggling with anxiety,” she said. “When Mark was working on ‘Facing the Beast Within,’ I was telling him about her struggles.”
Cheverton mailed them a copy of the unpublished book with a personal message written inside.
“When children know that they’re not alone in these struggles, it helps them,” said Holl. “His book also included strategies that this girl could use to help her.”
Cheverton worked with a team of child psychologists to infuse the stories with practical techniques to help children. By using the terms that some children may be learning in therapy, such as box breathing strategies, it reinforces the techniques.
“It’s going to echo what their therapist is telling them when they also see Cameron try to use those strategies in the storyline to help him be brave enough to go into the spooky cave or face something else,” he said. “It shows the terminology, so that it’s going to repeat what their therapist is saying, but it also shows them an example of how to use the strategy in those situations.”
Cheverton encourages parents who read the story with their child to talk and ask questions about the situations encountered in the story, such as Cameron’s anxiety about going over the rope bridge. Why couldn’t Cameron do it? Why did he have a panic attack? What was he afraid of? And were the fears real or imaginary?
The statistics of children with anxiety are staggering.
“After COVID-19, the CDC says one in three kids has anxiety. Those are the ones that have been diagnosed,” said Cheverton. “Of the kids that have anxiety, only 40% are able to get services because there may not be enough child psychologists near them.”
Other challenges include mental health services that don’t work with children, insurance coverage and busy schedules.
“There are a million reasons,” said Cheverton. “A lot of kids struggle with anxiety, but they’re not getting any help from anybody other than whatever the parents can glean off the Internet. I wrote this book hoping it’s really going to help kids who are struggling with anxiety.”
Holl said Cheverton has found a way to intertwine these elements into his books in a way that interests young people.
“I have personally seen students read and write for the first time because of Mark’s books and his message,” she said. “Being exposed to this kind of literature is exactly what some students need to realize that reading and writing can be fun.”
“There’s a huge benefit to kids reading books,” said Cheverton.
In his fantasy books, he always includes a personal nod to his own childhood: a flip book designed to combine the ideas of fun and literature for young readers.
“I was a teacher first before I did anything else,” he said. “I’m always a teacher at heart. This gives me an opportunity to still teach messages to kids about sibling relationships, grief or feeling like you don’t fit in.”
Holl’s students have 10 published class books, and Cheverton helped one student self-publish on Amazon.
“Mark brings excitement to kids about reading and writing,” she said. “He would personally read each of their stories and give them feedback. I also noticed that many of the students who devoured his books were students on the spectrum.”
Cheverton admitted that he originally never thought, “I’m going to write fiction.”
“It’s funny how things work out,” he reflected.
The books have garnered wide critical and award-winning acclaim, including the International Book Award for Children’s Fiction for “Facing the Beast Within: the Anxiety of Cameron Poole.”
“Some parents probably don’t recognize that their kids have anxiety because maybe they’re hiding it from their parents,” he said. “I just want parents, especially moms, to know there’s something out there to help with their child, whether they have anxiety or they don’t.”
This story was featured on page 1 of the January 17th, 2024 print edition of the Spot518
