Favorite Books

Children’s books are a great way to explore and learn about so many things, including feelings. Reading, looking, and learning about different feelings helps kids identify and name what they are experiencing. Kids also learn that their feelings are commonly felt by others. Feelings books also facilitate difficult conversations between caregivers and children about tense topics. I find that using literature to explore feelings such as anger, perfectionism, anxiety, longing, sadness, happiness, and love are great ways to help a child connect to parts of themselves on their own level. Feelings books also give caregivers a language and means to talk about big feelings using “kid terminology.”

I want to share some of my favorite ones so far (I keep collecting as my kids grow and my client base changes). If you have any favorites, please add them to the list in the comments section.

General Feelings

• The Day the Crayons Quit – By Drew Daywalt
  Age range: 3 – 7
  Why I love it: Funny story using kids’ favorite characters– crayons. The author humorously describes different personalities and leaves room for the parent and child to expand on why each crayon acts a certain way. Nicely illustrated and well-written.
• The Color Monster – By Anna Llenas
  Age range: 3 – 7
  Why I love it: It is such a cute pop-up book! It also combines monsters and feelings – which I think is great for monsters who otherwise get such a bad rap with kids. This book is nicely written and illustrated, succinctly yet directly describing the main feelings. One of my clients even made up a whole song to go with the book!

Anxiety

• The Invisible String – By Patrice Karst  
  Age range: 4 -8
  Why I love it: It’s a nicely written book that helps children with separation anxiety. The context isn’t clear about why the father is not included in the story – so it can be helpful for children going through divorce, separation anxiety when they go to school or learning to sleep in their own room. It also provides a nice tool for parents to use and apply to their everyday life – the invisible string – to help the child cope with separation.
• Scaredy Squirrel series – By Melanie Watt
  Age range: 4 – 8
  Why I love it: The series depicts the Scaredy Squirrel character, who is afraid of different scenarios and how he copes with anxiety from birthday parties, to make friends, to dealing with the night. It is a verbose and detailed book, so- depending on age and the attention span of your child, it may not be a quick read. The author points out anxiety in a silly manner that children can quickly relate with and laugh about.

Patience

• Waiting is Not Easy! – By Mo Willems
  Age range: 5 – 6
  Why I love it: Honestly, any book by Mo Willems is so entertaining. Having patience is in its own category of developmental milestones. What parent and child relationship does not have to deal with patience being an issue? Willems describes the issues with waiting in a funny way that keeps the child and parent interested.
• Waiting – By Kevin Henkes
  Age range: 4 – 8
  Why I love it: I had to add this one too on the topic of patience. It is a soothing book, one that explores what the toys do while they wait for their owners to play with them. Beautifully illustrated and touches on the child’s imagination.

Perfectionism

• The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes –  By Mark Pett and Gary Rubinstein
  Age range: 4 – 8
  Why I love it: This is a story of the perfect older sister and how she wants to do everything right, until she makes a mistake and she copes with it. I love it for those perfectionistic children who are afraid of making a mistake and can easily identify with her.
• Beautiful Oops! – By Barney Saltzberg
  Age range: 3 – 8
  Why I love it: This book describes, in a very nonchalantly and artistic manner, the beauty that takes place when we make a mistake. This book is more for parents of little ones as a gentle reminder that not everything has to be perfect and how much they and their children can learn from “messes” and torn paper. Even though the age range is for three years and up, I would also read this with a two-year-old.
• It’s Okay to Make Mistakes – By Todd Parr
  Age range: 3 – 6
  Why I love it: Todd Parr makes simple pictures with contrastingly bright colors and kids love it. With its easy-to-read prose and deep messages, kids get the idea that they can learn so much from a mistake.

Anger

• The Grouchies – By Debbie Wagenbach
  Age range: 3 – 6
  Why I love it: Sometimes kids wake-up in a bad mood and it takes them a large chunk of the day to snap out of it. This is an informative book for children and parents about angry moods and what they may represent.
• When the Anger Ogre Visits – By Andree Salom
  Age range: 3 – 7
  Why I love it: This book incorporates mindfulness and an understanding that everyone has anger inside of themselves that comes out sometimes. It’s a nice book because it teaches the child (and caregiver) tools to understand and tame the anger.
• The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm – By LeVar Burton and Susan Schaefer Bernardo
  Age range: 5 – 7
  Why I love it: The plot is about a natural disaster that negatively affects the family. It can also be a metaphor for holding in negative feelings, in order to “save” everyone else, and its ramifications. This is a nice book for children who tend to keep things to themselves even though they are experiencing many difficult situations.

Using books like these can help to open up and to explore feelings such as anger, perfectionism, anxiety, longing, sadness, happiness, and love. Giving you a good language to use with kids and connect with them.