I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Teaching children to pause and breathe and give themselves time to work it out before they immediately act on impulse is an important idea. This reinforces it. Not really blown over by the book, but it's helpful.

In my classroom, we discuss breathing techniques to deal with big emotions, and this book is going to be a wonderful resource. Breathing Makes it Better is a fun book to help children understand that they can handle big emotions, and teaches them effective breathing techniques. It reminds me of other children's mindfulness books, but that is not a bad thing.

Disclaimer: I received a copy as an ARC via NetGalley

This book is well conceived in combining the idea of an illustrated children's book and meditative practices. I think it is both adorable and helpful with accessible stress management tools for kids of all ages. I liked that different scenarios where kids might be overwhelmed by their feelings are illustrated and how to deal with them. A great way for kids to feel validated and learn better strategies for dealing with big emotions. It could be very useful to parents, guardians, teachers mentors and kids.

This is a super helpful book for my 4-year-old. The language is so easy to understand for a child. I really like the way it is written and it begins as since we all are alive, we have feelings and emotions. The author has tried to explain to kids that we all sometimes feel happy, silly, joyful and calm and sometimes we feel sad, angry, scared and alone. The later ones can make us really uncomfortable. If we watch and really notice feelings come and go just like our breathing.

This book illustrates six children feeling sad, anxious, alone, angry, confused and scared. When they have these uncomfortable feelings they stop and take a deep breath in and out. This helps them to find peace.

I would recommend this book for kids (age 3 years to 8 years). Sometimes it is overwhelming for kids at this age to experience such feelings and they need to find a way so that they are not overpowering.

I want to thank #Netgalley and Shambhala Publications. Inc, Bala Kids for the ARC of #BreathingMakesItBetter in exchange for an honest review.

A nice introduction to read with your young child or preschool class to introduce breathing techniques to calm anxieties.

Breathing Makes it Better is a picture book that describes how breathing can help children experience and overcome a variety of emotions. This book begins with an illustration of six different children with a variety of emotions visible on their faces. The text normalizes experiencing emotions by stating that everybody alive experiences different feelings and emotions at different times. Each child from the illustration then has four pages devoted to their feelings and emotions. The first page introduces the way the character feels in child-friendly language. The next page shows the character stopping to take a deep breath. The illustrations on these pages are simple and help capture the way the character is feeling in that moment. The next two pages for each character are more heavily illustrated, give a name to the emotion experienced by the child, and describe how taking a deep breath helps the character find peace. The end of the book emphasizes the importance of paying attention to your breathing as you move through different feelings.

The back of the book includes different ways that children can practice taking a deep breath. For example, the child could breathe in through their nose to inhale the scent of hot chocolate and then breathe out through their mouth to help cool the hot chocolate. There are also some guided prompts that caregivers or teachers could use to help guide children through talking about their emotions.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

#BreathingMakesItBetter #NetGalley

This book was a little bit above the attention and comprehension levels of my 4 year old, but would probably be nice for children a couple of years older. The illustrations are adorable, and it was calming for me. It focuses on children and their feelings and how breathing can help then work through those feelings in a practical way. The helpful mindful breathing tips at the end of the book were especially helpful.

This is a great book for anyone who may deal with anxiety or feelings of worry. It's a great way to a show children that sometimes just taking a moment to take a breath can help.

This book reads almost like a poetic song that I think younger elementary children would respond to the best. In a rhythmic way, the reader is reminded to stop and breath when feeling an array of emotions. The illustrations were colorful, but overall I just wasn't that moved by the contents.

This book teaches young children to focus on their breathing when they're feeling strong emotions. It's a nice introduction to mindfulness, with cute illustrations and catchy rhymes to repeat when you're feeling sad, angry, scared, or alone. There are also some simple breathing exercises at the back of the book that are perfect for kids (or for anyone who needs to take a moment and just breathe).

One thing that bothers me, though, is that this is yet another picture book where the illustrator isn't credited on the cover. For picture book connoisseurs, this omission is actually quite annoying, because it potentially makes it more difficult to find the illustrator's other work if we like it. It's also somewhat disrespectful; after all, most picture books wouldn't even exist without pictures!

BREATHING MAKES IT BETTER by Christopher Willard and Wendy O’Leary captures the emotional range of a child and how the act of breathing in and out can help calm their moods. I have read a lot of books like this for my own kids, for Girl Scouts, and just in general. The most important part of this book, in my opinion, is the idea of a mantra that a child can repeat to themselves when they get upset to help center them back, along with the actual breathing exercises. Our kids are in a tough spot in a world that is moving very fast and this book offers some tools to help them slow back down and that can’t hurt them. I also appreciated the scenarios in the book that caused the emotions like bullying, disagreements with adults, exclusion at school, etc. They will be relatable to children.

I received an Advance Review Copy of this book. All opinions are my own.