(*** Article first published as Book Review: Who Feels Scared? 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 4th book in the series which is "Who Feels Scared?"
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Title: Who Feels Scared? (Our Emotions and Behavior)
Author: Sue Graves
Illustrated by: Desideria Guicciardini
Publisher: Free Spirit Publishing (June 1, 2011)
ISBN-13/-10: 978-1575423746 / 157542374X
Board book, full-color: 32 pages
Dimension: 7¾" x 9½"
Description from the product page:
" From pets to grown-ups, everybody sometimes feels fear. And children, grown-ups, and animals aren’t all afraid of the same things. Jack and his friends Ravi and Kevin discover this when they have a sleepover—one that unexpectedly includes a few scares!
Part of the new series of Our Emotions and Behavior books from Free Spirit, this cheerful and reassuring story shows that positive coping skills can help kids deal with fear, and children can be brave even when things seem scary.
At the end of the book, a special section for adults suggests ideas for gently guiding kids to talk about feeling frightened and how to deal with that emotion. In addition, a series of pictures invites kids to tell a story in their own words about being afraid. 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!
This book is about Jack who is having Kevin and Ravi, 2 of his friends staying over his house for the night. In the beginning, the boys were excited but Kevin and Ravi were soon getting scared by the weird and mysterious sounds in Jack's room. All sorts of scary thoughts came to their mind. Jack who was not afraid with the weird sounds his friends heard, decided to calm his friends down by explaining to them the source of the mysterious sounds and they soon realised they got scared over nothing!
However all 3 boys got frightened when they heard a really scary noise coming from Jack's closet. They got so scared that their yells got Jack's sister, Ellie rushing in to check on them. They soon realised the noise was actually coming from Jack's toy robot!
Ellie then shared her experience on what she feared most and what she did to overcome her fear. Later on, Jack's dad came into their room and said it was time for bed. He read everyone a scary story which got everyone scared! But all of them soon remembered it was just a story and Jack's dad calmed them down by telling them that everyone gets scared sometimes!
From this story, I get to teach my boy to not be afraid. Ben might be a bit young for this but I feel that it's never too early to start teaching him that not everything with weird or scary noises are to be feared of.
I appreciate the additional 2 pages of picture story about the a little boy named Tom who is spending his first night away from home at his grandmas house. Tom looks worried when his parents left him but were soon happy again as he gets to spend time playing with his grandma. Before he goes to bed, grandma also told him a story and ensure he had his teddy bear to cuddle with in bed.
I think this mini story is a good example for us to emulate as I believe assurance from adults to children are very important in ensuring they do not get frightened easily or gave in to scary thoughts over silly things.
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"
