What Are They Feeling?

Another fabulous book by The School of Life, about feelings and empathy, aimed at mainly children.
This book offers an engaging read. As most books with lots of pictures, the quality and the style of the pictures impact the reader’s experience. The illustrations have a cartoony style, that reminded me just a tad bit of the Pink Panther animated show style. It is a cross between active/action styled comic and modern digital and minimalistic illustrations. The style being fresh was a great bonus and plus, it both added a layer to the narrative and did not shine more than the content.

As for the content, it is suitable for all ages of children, but those in the later years of primary school and early teens would appreciate the most. Still a good reference book for older children, young adults, educators and adults. And a good read aloud for the younger kiddos, but they would not grasp all the concepts in the book yet. It would be more of a conversation starter and one can always discuss the pictures with the younger children.

This book is structured in a way that the information becomes more nuanced, layered and detailed gradually. Hence the earlier pages can be shared with the small ones. That is what I enjoyed most about this book. For my child, we will need to read it a few times for the nuances to be grasped. I liked the gentle reminders, the conversation around assuming people’s feelings, judging them for their feelings or pressuring them to feel something else. The book covers some really important and annoying situations many adults still find themselves in. More over, it does not claim to be more than what it is. This is different from some other lovely books out there that depict and explain basic common feelings. This is more specific by commenting on more difficult situations and complexities, and there is a good emphasis on empathy.

📚 What Are They Feeling? 📚

Published by The School of Life

This is a wonderful guide to the feelings of those around us. It teaches children to look for clues about how somebody could be feeling. I really liked the way it explained how we can never truly know how someone is feeling, a point that was reiterated throughout the book.

The book tackles the difficult task of explaining the difference between sympathy and empathy. The explanations are incredibly clear but also highlight how tricky this skill this!

I love the illustrations that go with the book. This is definitely one that I will be using with the classes in school to further develop our work on emotional intelligence.

This is a review copy from @netgalley but all views are my own.