In My Heart, A Book of Feelings-a fun trip through emotions for kids

In My Heart, A Book of Feelings has a very happy cover.  One could almost say that it draws you in.  Certainly part of that feeling, pardon the pun, are the heart shapes that get smaller as you look at them.  The hearts cut into the middle of each page is part of the charm of In My Heart, but the words and illustrations on the pages are what make this a book about feelings that any age can relate to.

Our five year old is going through lots of emotions now.  It only happened recently with the sudden anger (for no reason), frustration, boredom, mean kids at school and so forth.  We’ve always been very zen with our children, telling them that it’s OK to be angry and that it’s how you handle it that determine how you feel.

We’re still very zen with them, but now we need to explain to him how other kids feel and that this is why they act that way sometimes.   Don’t get me wrong, our kids still use their emotions, well, emotionally for children.  Often times this means yelling, pushing, general melting down and that’s where a good book on emotions, specifically for children is needed.

The character in In My Heart is a little girl who goes through a variety of emotions.  She’s happy, with her heart big and bright, where nothing can get her down and she feels like flying.  On those harder days her heart is hurt, where her friends haven’t been nice to her.  Her heart is also shy, where she doesn’t feel like doing anything.

There are 13 pages where she explores the emotions going on in her heart.  At the end of the book she says that her heart has many emotions and asks how your heart is feeling.  Young boys can still relate to this book even though the character is a girl.  The illustrations are big, varied and quite fun to look at.

This book was also a good reminder that children process emotions very differently than us.  Sometimes they can’t or don’t process emotions and are simply irrational.  Parenting update:  children are sometimes irrational.  Kids learn different ways and ours learn by watching quality television and reading books.  In My Heart is one of those books that’s a great bedtime story that can also teach kids about being better people.