Therapy‑Speak in Children’s Books

Today’s top picture books often read like simplified CBT sessions about school anxiety and self‑esteem, delivered in ultra‑colloquial language and speech bubbles. By meeting kids only where they are, these books may stunt vocabulary growth and narrow the emotional and moral range of early reading. — If early literacy is colonized by therapeutic scripts, schools and publishers may be trading language development and character formation for comfort messaging.