Feelings

Rating:
Summary: Feelings Review
Review: Clearly, books that provide the opportunity to discuss and explore feelings with children are important and appreciated. This book adds considerable value to that cohort but is limiting in two, unrelated areas: first, it propogates unhealthy stereotypes--for example, a girl at a birthday party who persists for more cake and ice cream (depicting her as selfish and gluttonous) is overweight. Children's book authors most especially need to be sensitive to this type of issue. Equating heaviness (one of the only "heavy" children in the book) with gluttony or selfishness is unfair and hurtful and there should be no place for these types of statements in children's literature.

Second, the book is a bit scattered. The vignettes are nice in some respects, but bits like the "Scary Story" are unnecessarily anti-climatic and simplistic, especially given the fairly complex (and generally underrepresented in children's literature) exploration of multiple perspectives on feelings illustrated elsewhere in the book.

Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: Everyone needs to buy this book! I didn't understand what feeling were and if I had them or not, but now I know I DO have feelings and everyone else does too. If we all keep that in mund the world will be a better place for you and for me. Don't be afraid to FEEL!!!!

P.S. Buy the Book ( I also highy recommend MANNERS by Aliki)

Rating:
Summary: Feelings Review
Review: I used this book to teach feelings and empathy in my second grade class and it was a smash hit!! The short episodes, some only one frame or page, were perfect for the children to analyze and describe. The illustrations are very clear and the children were able to relate to them perfectly and recognize/empathize with the emotions portrayed. When we were done, all the students were able to not only recognize and explain with words how they were feeling, but relate to others and react appropriately to others in a wider variety of situations. It was a wonderful tool to reinforce cooperation and respect for others, and prevented many an argument and misunderstanding.

Rating:
Summary: My 2nd Grade Classroom
Review: I used this book to teach feelings and empathy in my second grade class and it was a smash hit!! The short episodes, some only one frame or page, were perfect for the children to analyze and describe. The illustrations are very clear and the children were able to relate to them perfectly and recognize/empathize with the emotions portrayed. When we were done, all the students were able to not only recognize and explain with words how they were feeling, but relate to others and react appropriately to others in a wider variety of situations. It was a wonderful tool to reinforce cooperation and respect for others, and prevented many an argument and misunderstanding.

Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: My daughter loved Hello! Goodbye! by the same author, and from the description I thought this would be similar. Unfortunately, this book did not have the wonderful illustrations that Hello! Goodbye! did and my daughter was not at all interested in this new book. The illustrations are small and penciled with only a bit of color. The variety of circumstances described in the book are also more limited. We definitely prefer Hello! Goodbye!

Rating:
Summary: Feelings was my favorite book as a child.
Review: My husband bought this for our son, who is three. It has been his favorite book for several weeks now. The book is separated into smaller stories and we read one or two at night before going to bed. It's been a wonderful tool to use to help teach our son about his feelings, about others' feelings.