(**Article first published as Book Review: I'm Not Happy by Sue Graves on Blogcritics.)
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I have the privilege of reviewing " Our Emotions and Behavior", a new picture book series from Free Spirit Publishing, which help young children recognize and understand their feelings, their actions, and how they are connected. There are 4 titles in the series: "But Why Can’t I?", "I’m Not Happy", "Not Fair, Won’t Share", and "Who Feels Scared?" and below is my review for the second book in the series...
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Title: I’m Not Happy (Our Emotions and Behavior)
Author: Sue Graves
Illustrated by: Desideria Guicciardini
Publisher: Free Spirit Publishing
ISBN-13/-10: 978-1575423739 / 1575423731
Board book, full-color: 32 pages
Dimension: 7¾" x 9½"
Description from the product page:
"Big feelings are part of daily life for small kids, and happiness just isn’t always within reach. Unwelcome events, from a broken toy to a missing pet, bring on sad feelings that can darken kids’ days. In this charming feelings book, follow along as Ben helps cheer up his friends and shows how kids can turn sadness into smiles.
Part of Free Spirit’s new series of Our Emotions and Behavior books, I’m Not Happy uses simple, easy-to-read text to present positive coping skills for children to use when they feel sad. The book’s gentle humor and colorful illustrations will appeal to kids, and happiness might not seem so far away after all by the end of the story.
The book also includes a series of pictures following the story, inviting children to use their own words to tell a story about helping others who feel unhappy. In addition, a special section offers adults questions to get kids talking feelings, and suggests positive coping skills for children dealing with sadness. Ideal for home and K–3 classroom settings."
I love the cute illustrations and I'm so glad to be able to review this book!
The first few pages of this book is about a little boy name Ben who helped his unhappy friend Amir to fix his broken toy truck.
From this story, I get to teach my boy to not be upset when his toys broke down and to try to fix it if possible. The point is more to getting him to understand that broken toys does not mean the end of the world.
After that, Ben went on to play soccer with his friends Tim and Lucy and there, another boy name Mike took Tim's ball causing him to be upset. Upon seeing Tim being unhappy, Mike felt bad and returned the ball to Tim and they went on to play together.
From this story, I get to teach my boy to share and play together and not to act selfishly like Mike.
In the next few pages, we see Ben helping Molly to find her lost dog but the storyline stopped there suddenly as he was interrupted by his mom who came over and told Ben he need to wear the sweater that his grandma made for him. Ben was not happy as he doesn't like the sweater but when he saw how happy grandma is when she sees him wearing her handmade sweater, Ben felt happy too.
From this story, I get to teach my boy to try his best effort to make people around him happy.
The following pages lead us back to how Ben continued to help Molly in searching for her lost dog. When the dog had been found, Ben was so happy!
I appreciate the additional 2 pages of picture story about a girl who accidentally bumped into a little boy along the path causing him to lose his balloon and luckily she is able to get hold of the balloon as I get to use the example to further teach Ben about taking things easy, not to be unhappy when something bad happens.
In my opinion, "Our Emotions and Behavior" series are a good choice for parents to use with their children because of the positive message they bring!
You can get this book from Free Spirit Publishing, Amazon
and many more.
I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a softcopy of the book by Free Spirit Publishing in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"
