In this initial installment, seven titles geared toward school-age kiddos address the events from Oct. 15 either broadly (“A Terrible Thing Happened,” by Margaret M. Holmes and Cary Pillo) or explicitly (“A Kids Book about School Shootings,” by Crystal Woodman Miller).

Dudley’s Co-owner and General Manager Amy Rose told the Source during a recent visit to the book corner that a “generous regular” approached them, “wanting to do something.”

“We’re not the experts,” Rose said, adding that she and her staff consulted a psychologist, licensed professional counselors who specialize in children and family practice and the local, accredited KIDS Center to come up with the seven-book bibliography. A couple more school-age books are on the way, she said. Dudley’s was able to buy the books at cost. Families are free to keep the books or, if they feel ready, hand them off to other families who might benefit from them; or return them to Dudley’s, whose staff will replace them in the book corner.

Community members who would like to make donations toward the upcoming book corner installments can inquire with Dudley’s staff members.

At a reading table upstairs next to a memorial for Silver Rail special education teacher Megan Lambert, whom Rose said was a Dudley’s regular, this Source reporter spent time with a couple titles.

The first, “A Terrible Thing Happened,” follows a young raccoon who experiences a series of confusing emotions — “which are things you feel in both your mind and in your body,” the author Holmes writes — after witnessing something traumatic. At first, the raccoon tries to carry on like normal, running and playing harder than usual to keep the bad thoughts out of mind. But episodes of sadness and anger pop up out of nowhere, and the racoon, Sherman Smith, surprises himself and others by acting out in mean ways. Getting in trouble for being bad makes these intense emotions feel worse. But then Sherman connected with Ms. Maple, a counselor, who “helped him talk about the terrible thing that he had tried to forget.” On the dust jacket, author Holmes writes that her book is for children who have witnessed any kind of violence, accidents, homicide, suicide or natural disasters such as floods or fire.

“A Kids Book about School Shootings” is written by Crystal Woodman Miller, an author, speaker and survivor of the Columbine shooting in Littleton, Colorado. The book opens with some questions you might be wondering: “Why would anyone do this?” There is never a good reason to hurt innocent people, Woodman Miller writes. “And there are a lot of people working to understand the causes and to create solutions to keep it from happening.”

The book gives instructions on how to ground oneself when feeling overwhelmed, such as: looking around and noticing small details you can hear, see and feel. They include the sound of your pencil scratching paper; your hands, resting in your lap; your feet, planted on the ground.

On the dust jacket, Woodman Miller writes how this book “will help grownups and kids start important conversations about school shootings and encourage everyone to be prepared for emergencies while reminding us that we should never let fear take over our lives.”