This book was adorable and I wish it had existed when I was a child. The amount of SEL books being published lately is amazing. I love how this book broke down different emotions into neighborhoods, and had different skills for each one. I can't wait to share this book with my niece, she loves yoga and all things mindful, I'm sure she will love this book as well.

Title: The Mindful Magician and the Trip to Feelings Town
Author: Lauren Brukner
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers

This is a very useful book for families, educators, and anyone who works with early elementary school aged students. Lauren Brukner is able to help students understand abstract feelings in a concrete way. The book gives easy to implement coping strategies for students experiencing strong and/or uncomfortable feelings.

The only gripe I have with the book is that after a child uses a coping strategy such as “stop” when angry, the author describes the book as not being angry anymore. This is not realistic, and uncomfortable feelings do not typically go away immediately. It would be better worded to share that the angry feelings have decreased. Other than this, I enjoyed the book.

Thank you Netgalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First off, the cover font and illustrations are fabulous. That’s what drew me in. And then lessons, the story is so well done and tremendously important for young readers to hear/read, and for parents and teachers to share. It’s engaging (love the cape!) and the examples are relatable and the tips are clear, plus easily implemented. I think would appeal to both girls and boys. Definitely recommending this to my young mothers and preschool owner friend. And I know several adults this book could help too. A truly valuable resource to help kids help themselves. Mindfulness — Well done!

Thank you NetGalley and Jessica Kingley Publishers for a copy of "The Mindful Magician and the Trip to Feelings Town" in exchange for my honest review.

This book has several techniques to help parents, caregivers and teachers help children manage overwhelming emotions. There are 5 strategies covered in the book and each gives a link where you can get more information online. The theme is that kids have magic inside them, they just need help to learn how to use it.

The book takes place in "Feelings Town" and the first strategy is strong feelings - anger, sadness and worry. Inside body feelings are fidgets, hunger, wiggles, sickness, toilet. They learn that feelings are normal and everyone has them. Kids need to learn how to recognize how they feel when they have strong feelings - increase in heartbeat, breathing, muscles tighten, their body feels hot. They learn to "stop" and deal with what they are feeling.

The second strategy is how to deal with big noises, busy sights that can leave them feeling scared and overwhelmed.

The third strategy is how to control the wiggles and where in the body they live - fingers, bottom, toes and feet. They learn how to make the wiggles disappear and feel calm.

The fourth strategy how to control movement when you move more than others. Where do they feel these wiggly movements - head, belly, toes.

The fifth strategy is inside body feelings like hunger, being full, being cold or hot, feeling thirsty, in pain or having a full bladder.

Parents, teachers, caregivers can go online for ideas in each category to help children learn about their emotions.

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley. This is my honest review.

As an adult, these tips for controlling large feelings don't seem very helpful, but if I'd known them as a child when everything did feel a little more magical and possible, they may have helped.

The story itself had a bit of a Magic School Bus feeling to it. Like the magician is Ms. Frizzle's distant British cousin. While Ms. Frizzle helps us understand science, the magician helps us understand emotions. Both definitely valuable lessons in my opinion.

Before reading this book to your children you may want a few items. These include a cape, five wands in the colors red, blue, green, purple, and yellow, and the ability to combine those wands into one super wand with a star on top.

Overall I give this story 3.9 out of 5 stars.

This is a lively, fun, and colorfully illustrated children’s book. The mindfulness exercises incorporated movement - including the indicators for when the reader is “ready” to help the book characters. The first technique seemed a little too miraculous - what happens to a feeling when one just commands it to stop? It doesn’t follow up with a way to process or deal with the emotion. I would have liked to have seen an explanation with that technique. Overall a nice primer in mindfulness.

I received an ARC courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley. The opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy to read in exchange for an honest review.

As a clinical psychologist in practice working with kids I will definitely be adding this book to my bookshelf. It was quite a comprehensive book! It offers practical tools for kids who are prone to experience big feelings and become dysregulated by them. I found the tools to be helpful and practical that kids can implement everyday. I can see this book used at home but also clinical and school settings. I found the story to be engaging for kids and I loved the illustrations.

This was a un expectedly thorough book! We have a number of social-emotional learning titles in our collection, but this book turned out to be very sensory-oriented, which I appreciated. While I wish it was a bit shorter to make it a more realistic read-aloud option, I did like that it was divided into sections by geographic area/feeling, so a parent or teacher could select a specific section to read to a child who needs a little extra support and strategy help!

I wasn't able to post to Goodreads but I hope to because this is a wonderful resource for young children and their parents.

The book is wonderfully illustrated and covers a wide range of feelings. There are 5 feelings that can be overcome by being mindful of "triggers" for those feelings.

1.) Strong Feelings
2.) Sights and & Sounds
3.) Wiggly Feelings
4) Movement Feelings
5.) Inside Body Feelings

As parents, we may not recognize what causes these feelings but we see our child acting out when these feelings arise. Sometimes loud noises can cause feelings of fear. Everyone is different in their feelings and we can help our child recognize these feelings and to deal with them in healthy ways. Building confidence and strong relationships.

Highly Recommend.

A magician goes through “Feeling Town” to help children experiencing Big Emotions & Inside Feeling. The magician asks for the readers help & teaches them valuable tools for handling these emotions.
Even as an adult I found the techniques used in this book to be relevant for me. It’s wonderful to know that children will be growing up with books like these available to them!

Thank you to Jessica Kingsley Publishers and Netgalley for the ebook to read and review.

This book takes a young magician in training around the feelings town to various children that are all felling difficult things and don’t know how to cope. The Magical Magician helps teach him what to do so he can teach the other children.

This was a really creative book, it’s interactive, has lots of factual information and shows children easy ways to deal with some big emotional issues. It has lots of detailed illustrations on each page, it covered each different area of sensory issues and emotions and feelings children may go through and struggle with.

The young magician has a cape and earns different wands throughout the story, he earns them by learning, understanding and helping with the other children. I loved that though the topic is big and heavy it is handled well and done in a fun adventure story way.

This is a good guidance book, it will help children, parents and teachers all learn and understand sensory emotional and physical difficulties they may be experiencing and some simple and way ways to deal with them.

I did find the tips though were great wouldn’t work for every child, some children that have high sensory issues would not find the tips in this book would help them much at all. But it’s still a great book for sensory issues and to find a way to calm down these issues before they all get too much and too heavy.

What a cool way to introduce children to findings ways to cope with big emotions.

The story was engaging and the illustrations were perfect and so detailed which is great for kids considering that some pages were wordier than others.

I will say the only possible drawback to this book is it’s a bit long for young children so it might be best to tackle this book one “wand” at a time in order to get the biggest benefit from the book.

A fun story about what to do when you are feeling overwhelmed. I really like how the book takes time to talk about strong feelings vs inside body feelings so children have an understanding of the difference.. Having all of the chapters is great for older readers, for younger readers you can focus on one chapter at a time. I really like how the visuals are themed with a color (i.e. strong feelings- pictures have a lot of red). A great resource to teach children mindfullness!

There are kids in Feelings Town who need help managing their strong emotions. Exploring reasons why we may feel certain ways and what triggers those emotional responses and reactions, (hangry anyone?), this book explores identifying feelings, naming them and finding ways to handle them safely and in a healthy way. With the Mindful Magician as a guide, this book shows children they have the power to control their own emotions, just like magic.

A delightfully simple exploration on mindfulness, Brukner has created an book with a focus on mindfulness and emotional skills. Tackling all five SEL core competencies, it touches on concepts and topics related to self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision making, social awareness, and relationship skills.

The bright illustrations and educational undertones to the text are a great way to open conversations between adults and young readers on what the different concepts and words mean to them and how to incorporate them into daily life. This book is a introductory guide to emotional regulation, feelings and mindfulness concepts. The strategies are great, and normalizes all emotions for children and allows adults to understand it is okay for their own children to have these extreme emotions or tricky emotions.

This story was both entertaining and educational, which can be a tricky balance to maintain in a children’s book, and I will be suggesting it to teachers whenever possible. Incorporating topics such as this into children's picture books is a tried and true way to teach important life skills in a way that is fun. This would be an amazing addition for classrooms, libraries, counselling offices and more.

This book not only goes into understanding feeling and what causes them, but it also the physical effects they can have on you while you are feeling extreme emotions.

This was a great kids book to give them strategies to deal with their feelings. I will revisit this with my 3 kids.

I wish I had been given to read a book like the one Lauren has written! I would have fewer emotional problems.
It's great to educate from the time they are little about the world of emotions, but if they do it by reading, understanding and enjoying reading, it's a plus.
I really liked it and it is the book I will buy for my kids.
The examples are easy to assimilate, to understand and I am sure they will help many children to know better how they feel and what they should do to feel better.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy to read in exchange for an honest review.

I teach kindergarten and have 3 kids at home. We use a lot of mindfulness strategies and I'm always on the hunt for new books to help make connections. This one is not one I will use. There is too much going on and it's way too convoluted for the ESL students I teach.

playful in it’s approach to handling emotion and racially diverse! sometimes it felt like it was more targeted towards parents than the children themselves though, with “bigger” words such as sensory being used.

"The Mindful Magician and the Trip to Feelings Town: tips and tricks to help the youngest readers regulate their emotions and senses" is an exciting, vibrant interactive book by Lauren Brukner, inspired by the strength children showed during the pandemic, that focuses on strong emotions and how to identify and process them accordingly.

Addressing the reader directly, The Mindful Magician takes us on a journey through Feelings Town, stopping to help children who are overwhelmed by their emotions along the way. It simplifies these emotions, making them easy for children to understand, with fun names like "fidgety feelings" or "inside body feelings." Encouraging readers to take part in silly actions while identifying emotions and the causes for them, this book maintains a light-hearted, fun feel the whole way through.

Brightly coloured, expressive illustrations by Jennifer Jamieson bring this book to life. Her crowded, energetic, full page illustrations show the chaos of overwhelming feelings, contrasted with simpler, tranquil illustrations to show peace once they have been dealt with. Each emotion in the book has been assigned a colour and all illustrations regarding that emotion clearly correspond, so the book makes sense visually. With such an incredible visual element, children will savour this book!

Touching upon more complex feelings than just happiness and sadness, this book addresses sensory overload and "inside" feelings like needing to go to the toilet. It encourages children to help their peers address their emotions, and shows there is no shame or embarrassment in feeling overwhelmed. It should be made clear this isn't a self help book. While it will help children understand it's normal to experience a range of emotions, it doesn't contain any "true" ways to deal with these past finger wiggling and toe touching. However, this engaging, interactive book can be a great way for adults to go further into ways of dealing with emotions with their children.

Ultimately, The Mindful Magician and the Trip to Feelings Town is a wonderful, absorbing book that will have children wanting to read and wriggle over and over again. Featuring a lovely message for all children: "You are full of magic."