This book allows children to learn about depression in an easier way. It makes their feelings valid. I really liked this book. The only part I had an issue with was the dad offering him food to make him better. Hopefully that will not lead to depression eating.

Melinda Szymanik writes about BIG feelings in her book 'My Elephant is Blue'. Have you ever felt so down that you felt as though an elephant was sitting on you? In this story, a little girl wakes up one morning with an elephant sitting on her chest. She has difficulty moving, breathing, or even speaking. "I'm Blue." says the elephant. The elephant is crushing me, so I ask it to move. It's perfectly happy where it is. It sits on top of me. When my parents try to cheer me up and tell me to smile, I tell them that it is hard to smile with an elephant strapped to your chest. Despite their efforts, my siblings are not able to help me. Additionally, my parents make an effort to help me. Dad suggested going for a walk. The only thing Blue did was ignore me when I asked her. In the end, Blue and I went on the walk dad suggested. My family decided to go on a picnic the following day. It was a lot of fun! On the way home, I felt lighter than I had in a long time. It was as I held Blue's trunk that something changed. Blue! You are turning PINK! "That is because I don't feel so blue anymore."

You'll have to read the book to find out the rest of the story.

I highly recommend this book. When young children are struggling with BIG feelings, it is hard for them to express themselves. This book is excellent at describing how the emotions may feel and how to overcome them. Children learn that it is okay to feel sad and that there are things they can do to help turn their feelings around. If you have a child or group of children who are hesitant to discuss their feelings, this book is a great way to begin the conversation. I enjoyed the colorful illustrations. They are simple and not overwhelming at all. For a more calming effect, lighter tones and pastels are used. This is a great book that I recommend.

How expressive the premise is!!!🤩
It symbolizes sadness as a blue elephant sitting on your chest and heaving you. 
 
 _"It's an elephant," Mom and Dad said.
"Surely it can't stay forever. It's bound to move on sometime."
I hoped sometime was soon._
 
May everyone's elephant turn pink and set free!🥹🩷🩷🩷🩷

This sweet and important story is about feelings and what to do when you feel overwhelmed with sadness. I like the use of blue and an elephant as those are two concrete ideas that kids would be able to connect with difficult emotions. Blue is also used in lots of self-regulation programs to identify sadness and similar emotions so I think that it would connect well to many therapeutic and classroom settings. I would definitely recommend this book. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read and review My Elephant is Blue.

This is a book about "big, heavy feelings," and it does a good job of describing some of the feelings a child may be experiencing when they are living with sadness. It also gives some suggestions for ways to get through a moment, like taking a walk or having some chocolate.

I know this is a really difficult subject and it's good to see a book addressing it with young children. I think this would be good with k-1st grade kids. I found it a little bleak (but realistic and honest) to think of a young child learning to live with depression (my interpretation). But also glad to see so much support from their family.

My thanks to NetGalley and Flyaway Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is cute and helps children understand how emotions can make them feel. The pictures are gorgeous and perfectly match how depression/sadness shows itself in different ways. I like that the girl experiences different symptoms and her parents try to find ways to help her including taking out books from the library. In the end, there is no magical solution. The girl needs to find a way to live with her feelings and understand that they may be different every day. Highly recommended for libraries and parents.

"Verisimilitude"

This is a book on glooming girl. She felt pain on her chest for varied reasons and thought of it so heavy as an elephant sitting over her, one morning when she woke up.
Blue is the color of sadness and low mood, so I would say Melinda described this factor so well in her picture book, metaphorically.

She tried a walking with her sadness and went to picnic her mother set to spend family time on and to lighter her mood further. With time spending with her blue, she realised when she started taking things on lighter note, the color of elephant turned to pink, a color for joy and happiness. Once, some more time she spent with that pinkish elephant, it started to turn to yellow, a color of warmth, hope and optimism.

This is a complete book on the sense of colors and the mood or nature (of humans) they resembles. A good learning for children. Also, with activities, Melinda depicted for how one can turn their sadness into joy and hope and learn to handle such situations or mood swings derived from those situations.

Some of the days everyone feels a little blue, sadness creeping up unexpectedly and without any apparent cause. We as adults can deal with our blues but how about kids who do not understand what exactly is sadness?

There comes this book for the rescue. My kid is still young to understand it but I'm definitely going to keep this book for the future purpose when she has a blue elephant sitting on her chest making her uncomfortable.

My girl anyways enjoyed the story as elephant , in her language "Hathiphant" ( she mixes hathi -Hindi word for elephant with elephant) is her favorite animal. She has been captivated with elephant for his unique feature and also because one of our Gods -Ganesha has elephant's head and rest of the human body.

She thoroughly enjoyed the book and she even showed me how the Hathiphant changed the colour towards end. She liked blue Hathiphant more though as blue is her favorite color.

I definitely will recommend this to all parents and teachers out there who want their kids to learn more about blues.

Thank you very much Netgalley and flyaway books for this amazing ARC in exchange of an honest review.

OH MY GOD. I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH. It’s so important for both kids AND adults to read. Sometimes worries or anxieties or our emotions can feel like an elephant on our chests. It’s important for EVERYONE to understand that it’s normal and even if we have all the help we can get, it isn’t so easy to move our elephant. And that it takes time and it’s never really gone, but it can change.

Ugh, I just adored this.

A sweet, gentle story about emotions, starting with heavy, oppressing emotions. A girl awoke one morning with a blue elephant sitting on her chest. Her entire family tried to help in their own special ways. As the story moves forward, the little girl learns that the elephant can change colors, depending upon her mood. I was given an ARC to review. My opinion is unbiased and honest. I loved many things about this sweet book. The entire family was concerned and worked together to help the little girl feel better. The little girl began to understand she didn’t have to have negative emotions, but with help and work, these could change to positive emotions. Cute, friendly, fun illustrations. Highly recommend.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read the ARC for this one. What a wonderful way for students to learn about positive ways to experience their feelings. The illustrations were beautiful and added to the text. This is a great book for children of all ages.

While the first words out the elephant’s mouth here – “I’m Blue” – are only going to set a class off singing a certain song, this is not to be dismissed. Our heroine wakes up with a bad feeling on her stomach – the literal blue elephant of the title and the visuals – and struggles to even get up because of it. Food won’t help, fresh air is not really possible – although baby steps in that direction are what turns the day, once the girl acknowledges the elephant a bit more than before. The thing is, there are a lot of books doing this sort of thing now, showing children with clear issues presented as splodges, blobs, clouds, and now pachyderms, and this didn’t really make itself that distinctive. With the very literal and obvious ‘feeling blue = being blue’ side of things, it seems like more effort might have been needed to make this a must-buy. Oh, and that mother really ought to open here eyes if she wants to read a pile of books. Three and a half stars.

This is the cutest book! A blue elephant comes along, and the boy must work through tough feelings. This would be a great read aloud at school or with any child that is having trouble talking about their feelings.

This story was adorable. My son loved that the elephant changed colors. I will say that the point where the elephant got off the kid was a little anticlimactic. I would have liked to of seen more excitement. Overall a very cute story.

Another great picture book representing SEL. I really love the sensitive way it was handled. I also loved the perspective that family and friends kept giving the child, concerning the Elephant- IE just forget it, etc. Often times depression does feel like this and the advice of others, although well-intended, can be hurtful. I also enjoyed the portion describing the parents being unfamiliar with elephants (depression), and checking out resources at their library about the subject. This depicts a healthy parent-child relationship, as well as the idea that resources are available to those who want to understand better.

This was a beautiful deep meaning book. However, I thought it had explanations of feelings for kids to understand that Blue the Elephant was their emotions they carry. It doesn't explain that. So after reading it with my son, I explained it to him that Blue the Elephant is like the emotions and sadness we can carry, and her colors changed depending on the good, not so great feelings. Still a cute book and a deep one, great for kids. My son loved the illustrations because he loves elephants!

I received this book from NetGalley to read and review. All of the statements above are my true opinions after fully reading this book with my son.

Such a sweet tale. I really liked how the blue elephant represented sadness and some of the things that the character did to try and help the sadness. I think it's a great book to provide kids with some ideas on how to overcome depression.

I tried to understand this one, but I was a little lost. Blue, the elephant, begins to feel "blue" and hangs around a young boy and his family. Is Blue bored or sad or perhaps lost in its own thoughts? The boy and his family do what they can to cure Blue, but does anything help?

I love the concept of this book, but it didn't work out as well as it could. It's great to personify (or elephantify?) sadness or troubling feelings and have others interact with the child to help nudge the elephant along. That had a lot of promise. And getting out for walks helps a bit and a bit more until the sparse illustration because colorful and full with the child and elephant feeling better.

I wish the ending could have been one spread earlier.

This was a sweet book, but the concept behind the elephant sitting on the chest and the color changing was not easily understandable to my child. It was cute, but not sure that I would purchase this book.