Review: The Way I Feel by Janan Cain

The Way I Feel talks about different ways the character feels and the reasons behind these emotions. Characters are illustrated with extremely expressive facial expressions along with a color scheme that matches the feeling and emotion. The author uses real life examples of why someone may feel that way. For example, they talk about how someone is disappointed because their friend can’t come and play anymore. This book also shows different emotions that adults might struggle to explain to their child. The Way I Feel  goes beyond the typical happy and sad amounting to something that many young children can relate to feeling. This book does a great job normalizing a wide range of emotions and helping teach children how to label their feelings. It is okay to not be happy all the time, and this book does a great job of showing that. Great for the reader who is learning about emotional literacy and normalizing an array of feelings.

If you like this book you may like:

The Feelings Book by Todd Parr

How Do You Feel? by Lizzy Rockwell

Review: I’m Worried by Michael Black & Debbie Ridpath Ohi

In this New York Times Bestseller; potato is worried! He’s not worried about just one thing, no, he is worried about anything and everything. He looks to his friends (a flamingo and a young girl) to tell him that nothing bad will happen, but they do not provide him with the support he anticipated. The three of them must work through the worry and understand that being worried is okay. Together, they learn that something good comes out of everything. In the end, Potato and Flamingo make a very silly decision out of fear. This book does a wonderful job of depicting the emotion of worry. It does not shy away from how scary a worry may be and accepts that it is okay to be worried. This is a great book for the reader who may be struggling with anxiety or excessive worrying. The use of potatoes and flamingos, along with the short sentence structure makes this book entertaining and easy to read.

Resources:

An interview where Michael Ian Black talks about why he felt the importance to writing this book: https://www.today.com/video/michael-ian-black-chats-about-his-children-s-book-i-m-worried-60493893889

A read aloud by Michael Ian Black.