Tuesday Storytime: Expressing Feelings

Ok, time for a break in the winterpalooza. I can only handle so much snow and winter before the grey green grass outside gets really depressing (although I do appreciate that it's MUCH warmer here than in truly wintry stomping grounds).

This storytime focuses on feelings, and how they're all natural, and fine, and how to articulate them, and how everyone feels them.

Tough Guys (have feelings too)
Keith Negley
ISBN: 9781909263666
A parade of "tough guys" from Knights to Ninja to Astronauts to Luchadores to Race Car Drivers to even Superheroes, Cowboys, and Biker Dudes all show sadness and grief and lonliness in circumstances familiar to every child: loss, lonliness, frustration. The only picture I skipped was right at the end - because there were so many younger children present, I chickened out of showing the spread where the Biker Dude mourns a small furry roadkill squirrel. Books like these are really important for showing kids that all their emotions are healthy and permissible, and teaches them words and concepts to help feel more in control of what are sometimes very scary internal states of being.

I Am So Brave!
Stephen Krensky, illustrated by Sara Gillingham
ISBN: 9781419709371
A cute AA child (mostly coded as male but not specified) shows off paired illustrations on each spread with short couplets of what they feared and then overcome. Our first illustration goes right for it: the child is hiding behind an adult's legs, while a black dog and other dogs take up most of the foreground. Opposite tho, there's a happy embrace between the child and a rambunctious and happy black puppy. The drawings aren't done to heighten a sense of drama or fear in the "scared" panels, and the child looks roughly the same age and ability in each pair. It's very powerful and punchy.

My Friend is Sad (Elephant and Piggie)
Mo Willems
ISBN: 9781423102977
Gerald (the elephant) is sad. So Piggie tries to cheer him up by sneaking up on him in various elaborate costumes: cowboy, then a clown, then a robot. Gerald cheers momentarily, but then resumes being morose. Piggie gives up and heads over to apologise for not being able to provide any lasting cheer, and discovers something important about their friendship (and about the state of Gerald's eyesight). It veers juuuuust a touch into codependency at the end, but overall it is sweet and a direct reminder that fun times are more fun with people to share them with, and that friends really do need their friends in a real way.