I am so thankful that this book was published. The best part about this book is that it was written by people who are autistic, which I think is extremely helpful and important. There aren't a lot of books out there to help with the autistic experience and written by someone who has autism. I loved that it included a lot of strategies to help deal with emotions and understand them.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review. I loved it and will purchase a copy to give to my son.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

The Awesome Autistic Guide to Feelings and Emotions is one of the best non-fiction books I've come across so far about feelings and emotions for children with any form of autism.
The book helps children/YA feel seen and understood as well as helping, supporting, and guiding them on how to navigate and manage their feelings and emotions. It's a great book for parents, carers, and even teachers to read too to understand and help them to support a child struggling with these areas and emotions, which are huge things.
Each section is easy to navigate and understand for both parent and child and is just a huge hug in a book for all who read it.
The activity ideas are really supportive and helpful and it is definitely a book to invest in!

The Awesome Autistic Guide to Feelings and Emotions is a short, 96 page guide designed mainly for autistic kids aged around 7-12 years. While the language used is ideal for that age range, it can be helpful to autistics of any age, as well as others who spend significant time around an autistic person. After a short introduction of basic concepts common in today’s autistic community, the two autistic authors, Yenn Purkis and Tanya Masterman, cover what feelings and emotions are and how they feel, as many autistics struggle with this aspect of life more than most neurotypicals, and it’s not helped by the myth of autistics lacking emotions. There’s a deep dive on a few critical emotions, like anxiety and anger. It talks about how differences in sensory functions might alter the autistic’s feelings and emotions as well as Alexithymia, emotional blindness that some autistics have. The last section covers autistic meltdowns, some calming strategies, and making comfort zones to have a generally happier life. Purkis and Masterman add in some of their personal experiences, with a mascot named Min the meerkat, reenforcing the topic with child friendly examples. There’s also written activities that can help the readers navigate each topic. Side note for Americans: this is written in UK English. Highly recommended!

This guide was so needed in our home. My son, age 5, is on the spectrum. One of his biggest struggles is understanding feelings and emotions of himself and of others. This was a truly comforting guide for us. The help it has given me as a mom has me so thankful and appreciative to the wonderful authors.

It covers so many helpful topics from understanding what emotions are and why we experience them to how we can handle those emotions in a good way. The guide is for older children mostly but sharing it with my son has been amazing. The way things are explained and activities to help are truly wonderful. I loved that it helps him understand why he may feel a certain way and that it is okay to have different feelings even about the same thing.

I don’t even have the right words to describe how wonderful every section is. I am so thankful for the care and effort as well as the support that this book gives us. Always a work in progress but this book meant the world to us.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing us to enjoy the ebook ARC. We can’t wait to add the book to our home.
A million stars to this book.

4/5⭐

Great book. It has really good examples on how to show compassion and empathy.

I doubt that you will remember all from here but give it a go. It has a nice message and you can learn a lot about the emotions.

Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As an Autistic adult with Autistic children, I found this book to be a nice guide and a call for reflection on how to navigate emotional expression and management. I recommended this to my oldest's school and therapists as soon as I finished it! Some of the examples we have implemented in our home and have seen some great improvements! Thank you NetGalley for the ARC opportunity.

As a parent of an autistic adult child, feelings and emotions are one of the hardest to navigate at times. I’m sure it’s as hard for him as it is for me to witness him in his ‘feels’. Thank you for a perfect guide and making emotions normalized.

I love this series of books, it's aimed at middle grade kids but honestly older kids and adults could benefit just as much from them!

It uses nice simple language, but it never talks down, and it manages to explain some pretty heavy emotional concepts

I received an advance copy for free from NetGalley, on the expectation that I would provide an honest review.

Another awesome book for younger people who have recently found out that their quirkiness is called autism – the world most definitely needs more books like this one. the ones that help people make sense of what it is that the Normal Normies are pushing onto them – and what it is that is happening inside your own self.

This was a great read, and will be very helpful to younger autistic readers or those completely new to autism, wanting to learn more about emotions, which are something many autistic people, myself included, can struggle with identifying and expressing appropriately. I would definitely recommend this to any autistic people or those with autistic loved ones, as it’s a very well written guide.

This is a short but helpful book that I wish I'd had as a child. I love the inclusion of the etymology of terms and activities to get readers thinking about their emotions. A lot of the information is familiar to me as an adult from previous reading but this could easily be eye-opening to other readers.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read it.

It was very wordy but equally informative. My son is autistic so it was very helpful In order to understand him on a different level. I struggle to understand him and whemy he does the things he does so this was helpful in getting an understanding on him a bit.

THANK YOU NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for this eARC of The Awesome Autistic Guide to Feelings and Emotions by Yen Purkis and Tanya Masterman.

Love Love LOVE this. Both of my boys are autistic and I'm SO glad and thankful that I got the whole series when it was available under the Read Now Section. This book has honestly helped me connect and understand how my son may feel/stemm in situations. I HIGHLY recommend this book for anyone who are both autistic and/or have kids on the spectrum.

I see this book being super valueable to have in my back pocket to revisit as my boys grow up and deal with this...crazy world. Did I mention already how much I enjoy this book/series?!

<3

As an autistic adult, I really loved this whole series. Obviously, I’m not the target audience, but this one taught me a lot. I have alexythemia, struggle to understand what I feel, the book talks about it but doesn’t name it, which I loved!!! People never understand me when I tell them I don’t know how I feel, I never have, so this book was very helpful in trying to help me figure some of those things out. I still very much struggle, but this book did give me insight I didn’t have before! I think it’s great, and definitely will be recommending it to future autistic children/their parents that I meet!

What's particularly valuable here is the authors' understanding that autistic individuals often experience emotions differently sometimes overwhelming, sometimes barely perceptible. The inclusion of Min the meerkat as a guide character shows thoughtful consideration for how autistic readers might connect better with information presented through a relatable intermediary.

This is really necessary for autistic young people who are experiencing the world differently and who are being met with people who either refuse to understand the source of the behavior or are actively trying to refusing to believe that autism is something that is a part of young people's lives. At this moment autism is being demonized and pathologized - as someone who is autistic, I think this is crucial to promote acceptance and understanding in young people of autism.

i can tell that this book will help so many people, it is wrote in a way that is imformative as well as being funny sometimes too. i think this book will be relatable to lots of people.

Having read several of the Awesome Autistic Guides so far, for my young daughter with autism, I was looking forward to reading this guide on feelings and emotions the most. Because that is something very particular that my kid struggles with, and I thought this book would be most beneficial to her as we help her educate herself on her beautiful brain. I'm glad authors Yenn Purkis & Tanya Masterman wrote a guide specifically about this subject, allowing us to dive deeper into these themes.  

If this is your first Awesome Autistic Guide, you'll be new to the way Yenn & Tanya begin this book: simply by introducing themselves and their own autism to their young readers. This relatability instantly makes this book a safe space and I love that approach. They as always also introduce their character Min: a meerkat who helps illustrate certain examples for additional clarity. 

The book starts with a clear goal: to help autistic children understand what emotions they may feel, what one's "comfort zone" is, and to provide clear "ways to stay calm". The authors give a broad explanation at first, and work their way down into more detailed topics the further along you read. 

They outline neatly what it means to feel comfortable and at ease with yourself, including in your body. The authors implore their young readers (and their caretakers!) to have a look at what a comfort zone may look like for them. After that, we learn where emotions come from; they touch on the concept of common emotions for certain situations, but also the understanding that people are still different and can feel/react differently. Early on the authors validate their readers: "your emotions are YOURS and they are always the RIGHT ones for you". This is so important! I've noticed they repeatedly add in boosts like these to make their readers feel understood. Re: safe space!  

I mentioned earlier that Purkis & Masterman include the body in the topic of emotions. They go on to explain a bit about hormones, the fight or flight response and in a chapter about sensory issues, they include the "other" senses - e.g. sensing your body's position, sensing your bodily needs such as hunger, etc. So good to include these senses that are usually always overlooked! It's a little more technical than what we've read in other guides, but we're getting relevant, necessary facts that will be helpful for autistic children to understand how their body works to help them feel emotions. It's not too complicated because they bring in helpful examples. 

They continue with chapters about how to know what feeling, if anything (it's okay to not feel something, too!), you're feeling. I thought the comprehensive lists describing how each emotion MIGHT be experienced are especially helpful both in learning about emotions in general, but also as a tool to use in particular situations, when you're not sure how to express what is going on in your brain. Kind of like a feelings wheel, but taking it one step further to identify broader emotions. For example, for anxiety the authors list things like "Feel as if your heart is racing" and "need to go to the toilet" alongside "worry about things".  

Finally they go into strategies. One thing I've learned about my daughter is that she often needs in-depth information to help her process the world around her. For most people, feeling anxiety is obvious, we know how to identify it. But for my daughter, it isn't obvious - she often just feels really, suddenly, intensely overwhelmed and has a hard time telling us what's the matter. So the more information she has, the more strategies she can develop, the better. Helpful exercises are scattered throughout the book at useful times, but the whole guide reads like an exercise in understanding, identifying and coping with emotions. An example of a good coping strategy, one could say, is reading this book! 

Anxiety and anger are the more stressful and overwhelming emotions in the moment, so I think it's good that the authors focus on those two emotions with regards to finding ways to cope. 

The book goes full circle with advice on how to stay in a calm place. (Something we could all use a little help with every now and again.) A lovely guide, and I'm grateful to NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for generously providing me with a copy of this book; all opinions expressed are honest, voluntary and 100% my own.

This is a great guide for young kids and tweens about how to deal with feelings and emotions as an autistic person. It comes from a very positive place and I really think it will be helpful to kids and tweens. Recommend!

An incredibly informative and helpful guide. This book I feel is a must read for even those who do not have autism. I know plenty of children (and adults) that could definitely use these explanations of emotions and tips on how to regulate them.