Nonfiction post of the month

This post is on my main source of research for our picture books: When The Mirror Lies bt tamara b. Orr.

The book When The Mirror Lies by Tamara Orr is a nonfiction book on eating disorders such as binge eating disorder (otherwise known as compulsive eating), anorexia nervosa, and bulimia nervosa. It takes the reader through 10 first hand accounts of recovering anorexics, bulimics, and binge eating disorder sufferers. It goes into facts and statistics about weight and eating disorder occurrences, it also shares short factoids such as Latin roots. But it isn't just about eating disorders, it includes weight charts, questionnaires, and information about negative body image and self harm. While my project is not about a character with an eating disorder, this book has been like gold in my writing process.

The book includes 10 first hand accounts of living with these dangerous eating disorders. The book starts off with a bang by depicting the everyday life of an anorexic. But the first hand accounts are much more valuable than that. They delve into the phsycological portion of an eating disorder as well as the symptoms. For example in "Catherine's story" she says that "'my mother made a lot of comments about my thinness,'" which she later explains played a big roll in her anorexia. The book goes into the phsycological factors and triggers for anorexia.

To both entertain the reader, and give them a better perspective of the issue, the book goes into factoids and statistics about eating disorders. The book says that "the word anorexia means 'without appetite.'" And that "the word nervosa means 'condition of the mind.'" The book goes into greater detail with these facts explaining that anorexia is not a lack of appetite and that not eating is merely a symptom, and not the disease. The book also includes a weight chart and other symptoms of anorexia and bulimia nervosa. The statistics in this book were easily the most helpful in the writing of my story.

The extras in this book, while meant to entertain readers, also have a profound phsycological value. The book contains questionnaires, charts and a section called "weighty words" introducing the media as one of the factors in many eating disorders. One of the questionnaires really helped me in creating one of my main characters. It listed some of the symptoms of various eating disorders including "counts calories in all foods eaten" and "feels guilty after eating." These statistics and facts allowed me to design a character who has disordered behavior, but not a full blown eating disorder.