This is such a sweet way to represent worry and anxiety. I read it with my son who struggles with this. He was easily able to understand the message, and pick out the steps to overcome his worries every day. I loved the replacement of “worry” with “resilience.” It fostered a great conversation.

The author of this book has managed to turn the feeling of anxiety into a character, the Purple Worry, so that young children can begin to understand and separate themselves from the worries they experience daily.
What a lovely book to share with a child or group of children to help them begin to understand the feeling of worry, be encouraged to take risks, and develop resilience. As a parent, I would use this book to spark important discussions with and bring comfort to a child struggling with anxiety. As an educator, I'd gladly use this book as a segue to developing the growth mindset culture of the classroom. I could easily see this becoming a mental health/character development series providing personification of various emotions.

Thank you NetGalley and Flyaway Books for allowing me early access to the ARC ebook edition of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book tackles an important topic that many children struggle with: anxiety. Throughout the story, Max learns that it is okay to make mistakes. It is a great addition to any SEL collection. Social workers can use this to open discussions with struggling students as well.

Max and the Purple Worry
Kitty Black

A heartwarming story of a little boy who is struggling, mostly with math, but other things as well. A purple Worry comes to chat with him about math, making matters worse for Max and this causes him to feel ill and get into trouble. After worrying a long while, Max remembers that he can try his best, ask for help and persevere. In the end the worry fates away as Max remembers that he can do hard things. The Purple Worry fades away and is replaced with a new creature called Resilience. The book includes ideas and explanations of how we can help children by encouraging them and not to let any one feeling take over, providing them with the ability to develop positive feelings and healthy habits.

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My 8 year old liked the book "because you don't need to worry a lot. You can worry a little, but just keep trying." It was a great book for my child who does sometimes think he needs to be perfect and will worry and get frustrated. Thanks for the ARC of this book. I think it will help lots of kids and give them a better understanding of their worries and how to deal with them.

Oh, sweet Max! I wish I had this book years ago for my own Max! Young Max is a worrier and is overwhelmed by his emotions. He seems to only hear the negative voices in his head until he learns it's ok to ask for help. I love how worry becomes resilience. What a great book to open up conversations with children who may be struggling and can be a great tool in the classroom, therapist office or on your own lap.

A lovely book that deals with the pressure children face when learning new things and the fear of failure.
Learning to ask for help is not a sign of failure. Helps children talk about the worry and anxiety they are dealing with.
#MaxandthePurpleWorry #NetGalley

Such a cute book about how worry can affect children. Working past his worry was a big problem for Max. This is great way to explain to children the way worry can feel & how to manage those feelings. My kids really liked this book.

Thank you so much Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the arc ❤️ What a marvellous story!

I am genuinely floored by how beautifully and gently it shows the impact of worrying too much - to the extent where it holds us back, makes us feel nauseous and induces sleepless nights. Worry is as natural as happiness and pain. Denial of the emotion or letting it consume our entire being can be harmful for both body and mind. Instead of getting overwhelmed when it creeps up on us, we can choose to embrace the feeling and take a brave approach. For me, I haven't read any book better than Max and the Purple Worry that raises awareness regarding the issue in such a calm, soothing way.

The story has all the makings of a great book : 1) an amazing plot, 2) beautiful illustrations, 3) encouraging character development and 4) a wonderful writing style that completes the book. Highly recommended for everybody.

I really liked this book because often times children are just expected to be able to work through their own emotions on their own. But this book gives parents and adults the tools they need to have those conversations with their children about strong emotions. I do wish there was a little more to the book, but I did enjoy that the Author included extra content about how to teach children to address their feelings/worries with confidence. I will recommend this book for purchase at my library.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 stars!

Holy smokes! This is a phenomenal children’s literature book! The illustrations were playful and engaging but the story was incredible!

As an early childhood educator I am always looking for books with powerful messages to engage students in conversations about their feelings! Our school word of the year was resilient coming back from COVID shut down and it continues to hold true to our little learners in our title 1 district.

I can see so many powerful conversations being had and connections being made with this book! This book was phenomenal and I hope that the author shares more of their work in the future! I love this playful take on such a powerful and real situation for all students! This book is going to bring so much inspiration and breakthrough moments for young learners struggling!

I want a copy of this for my room as well as my coworkers and all my students!

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!!

When Max is faced with an awkward maths paper at school his stomach makes the noises of a washing machine, and a purple critter called Worry comes along to reinforce the impossibility of it all and the consequences of doing badly. What is going to happen – will Max ever succeed, or has Worry got too much of an influence for him to ever get anywhere? The plot-line of this is rather obvious, as perhaps is the characterisation of Worry, but none of that can actually be an issue – you want a book like this to be easily read, highly pictorial and so overt nobody can fail to understand it. And that's what we get. A strong four stars – four and a half perhaps when you see how this could be turned to for the fun of it and not just because a teacher shoved it in your face as a lesson.

Wow, what impressive insight into children's emotions! Author Kitty Black shows prodigious empathy and perception for the everyday worries and fears children face. Numerous situations adults take for granted can be disquieting or horrifying for children. They habitually encounter new experiences. Max and the Purple Worry presents emotions in the shape of animals, and purple ones at that! Jess Rose's illustrations are marvelous, with the purple meerkat of worry showing as many alarmed expressions as Max.
Max experiences crushing worry in the form of a meerkat who tells him numerous dreadful outcomes if he cannot complete his math sheet well. Max's stomach "churned like a washing machine," and he did everything he could to avoid a disastrous outcome.
Max has adults who reassure him, but worry returns despite this. The story is stunning in its accuracy in depicting children's feelings and beautiful in its purpose of showing young ones that their emotions are normal and can be dealt with. More books like this one need to be published! Crippling anxiety in children is more easily dealt with if it is addressed at a young age. Thank you, Kitty Black, for this stunning book.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Flyaway Books for the ARC of this book.

Absolutely love this book. Perfect for kids with anxiety and using it in a therapeutic setting. I am always looking for different books to help explain anxiety to kids and give real examples/experiences. This is one that will resonate with kids I work with. I'll be purchasing this as soon as it is available!

Excellent book showing Max with so many worries in school. With support he’s told do your best. He still worries and thinks things have to be perfect. Max finally realizes mistakes are made and that’s okay. He knows he can ask for help.

Thanks to NetGalley and Kitty Black for a wonderful chance to review this book. This was so great seeing worry as a color, let alone as a purple meerkat!!! We sometimes forget that little ones worry and stress over the little things like a math test, but once upon a time that was us! Kitty Black has done such a wonderful job of making those worries fade to a soothing state so that a child doesn’t feel anxious by the time I finished reading I felt better as well.🥰 I’m definitely going to get this for those in my family that are feeling stressed and let them know they are not alone. Definitely a wonderful book for those who are struggling with anxiety about school and tests.

Anxiety is such a common thing with kids. I like the way the information is presented in this book. It gives kids someone to relate to and to understand from. So helpful for many kids.

What a wonderful book about anxiety, perfectionism, and what happens when we can work with our feelings instead of simply suffering through them with no end in sight. The depiction of "worry" as a pesky meerkat -- with another, perhaps more helpful, emotional animal down the road, is a wonderful way to discuss the very real experience of facing, and overcoming, the physical and emotional experiences of being alive.

This book will be particularly useful for those kids (and maybe even grownups, like this one!) who face challenges with math, but can easily expand to other subjects, and even sports and social situations.

The writing is simple and accessible, and the illustrations are lovely, colorful, and expressive. Highly recommend for caregivers and educators of all kinds.

Max and the Purple Worry is a wonderful story that will help students understand the emotion of worry and how it can be replaced with resilience. I can relate with Max. I was never a good math student, and I worried over my homework. I think there are a lot of children who have a subject they struggle with. This would be a great book to share in a classroom or one-on-one with a child. I received a free copy, and opinions are my own.

Max and the Purple Worry uses a purple meercat to represent a child's anxious thoughts and feelings. The illustrations are adorable and the anxious thoughts are familiar to the patterns of thinking that can surround common childhood experiences like taking tests, but there is something the author (and publisher) seem to have overlooked: children in elementary school are concrete thinkers, and asking them to think in abstract metaphor is literally developmentally inappropriate. No, it isn't easy to explain concepts like resilience to children, and trying to do this using cute animals is certainly an adorable idea, but as a professional in child development I just don't believe that young children will be able to access the lessons being presented in this format. To say that worry "needs a moment" to process a child fighting back with logic - this is clearly written for an adult's perspective.