Broken Hearts…Healing: Young Poets Speak Out on Divorce

Broken Hearts…Healing: Young Poets Speak Out on Divorce contains poems written by children who remind us that divorce ends a marriage and not the relationship with the children. Divorce creates a series of painful victims with the children suffering the most. This book contains words from the children who are the real “experts” on divorce. Used by school counselors to help heal the pain of divorce, these poems will help you understand a child’s emotions. Broken Hearts…Healing is a great starting point for parents and counselors to start a conversation about this painful topic. Broken Hearts...Healing was awarded “Honor Book” status by Voices Of Youth Advocacy (VOYA) and received a Top Pick” award from BookSense Independent Bookstores across the United States.

Professional Editorial Reviews

Curled Up With A Good Book
"The poignant poems collected in Broken Hearts...Healing ought to be required reading for every couple contemplating ending their marriage, and should certainly be used to help children from broken families know that they are not alone in their hurting. Ruthlessly honest and heartbreaking, the poems are outpourings of grief and resignation from children of divorced parents."

Publishers Weekly
"With haunting lines such as "Divorce can slaughter you" and "A girl without her father is incomplete," nearly 200 children mostly teens, though a few are as young as 10 years old whose parents are divorced have allowed editor Tom Worthen to collect their blunt, eloquent in Broken Hearts...Healing: Young Poets Speak Out on Divorce. Worthen, a communications professor who has tried to be the "best divorced dad I could be," is determined to bring children and parents together to talk openly about complex and painful issues."

School Library Journal
"Gr 5 Up-Children of divorced parents will recognize the emotions and experiences expressed in this collection of poems written by young people between the ages of 9 and 18 who have experienced the pain of divorce. Some 200 poems address the initial shock of learning of their parents' separation, feelings of abandonment, the pain of change, frustration and anger, step-families, and finally acceptance and growth through the sadness. The poets speak from the heart and their poems are sophisticated, reflecting mature emotions. The strength of this book lies in the charged words of youth; this is not a book about divorce written by an adult for children. Rather, it is by their peers, and readers who are going through divorce will know that they are not alone in their feelings and emotions."
Midwest Book Review
"Broken Hearts…Healing: Young Poets Speak Out On Divorce is an impressive and memorable collection of original poetry stemming from the disruption, heartbreak, and confusion of contemporary divorce as experienced by the children of separating parents. The boys and girls who work is here collected are children in grades 4 to 12 with their poems are held to a maximum of 21 lines each. This compendium of honesty and candor ought to be read by every father and every mother who has ever contemplated, or implemented, a divorce proceeding."
"The sheer intensity of the words will grab any adult's attention." — Today's Librarian

"The power of this…is recognition of the power of knowing that one is not alone; one can be heard." — Voices of Youth Advocates

"GOING THROUGH A DIVORCE is difficult…on kids. These poets remind us that while divorce is traumatic, you do survive." — The Spokesman-Review