Tilda Tries Again, fabulous art and guilt-free fun on never giving up

There a couple of ‘feelings’ books that are out there for the illustrated book audience, and they all aren’t created equal. If you’re new to the emotional book game or simply want to dig into some books that place an equal balance on entertaining, as well as the message then you need to read the series by Tom Percival. Tilda Tries Again is in the Big, Bright Feelings book series. It’s an oversized illustrated book that deals with emotions that any kid experiences.

Kids have wonky days, heck we all have days like those. These are those times when we can’t seem to do anything right. Their coordination is off, they say the wrong things and all they want to do is crawl up in a corner and not be around anyone. Tilda Tries Again tackles those days and absolutely nails the unspoken, difficult to quantify feelings of not succeeding the first time that you try something. It does so by establishing a story with simple, sparse text that playfully mixes up its placement and size throughout the book.

Set against those words is art that really knows the soul of an elementary school student. When Tilda is happy her world is awash is bright vibrant colors. From her friends to her toys and the flowers around gets hazy with black, white, and their duo-chrome blend. At the same time, her perspective goes sideways and upside down in a very literal manner. Tilda is trying, but not succeeding and gravity, as well as her world, is not cooperating with her.

She’s sitting on the ceiling in her bedroom. She’s walking parallel to the playground. Her water is flying out of the cup and the strawberries are going north. It’s when she’s in the thick of this that she finds the thing that will help her realize a way to feel better. Tilda sees a ladybug that’s stuck on its back. It’s wiggling hard to turn itself over, contorting, tossing, and turning until it’s finally able to stand on its legs and fly away. She observes that the ladybug never gave up, even though it was certainly tired, frustrated, and thinking that its friends were laughing at her.

Tilda sees herself in the ladybug and gives the things that had previously frustrated another attempt. Sure enough, the toys play better, her book comforts her and she’s getting happier. But, will she have enough confidence to try and play with the other kids in the playground, the biggest thing that had vexed her?

Young readers will be sucked into Tilda Tries Again from the first page. They’ll love the feel of the pages, which have an old-school texture to them that begs for interaction. The illustrations have a large-scale vision that makes them think about things, without telling them that there’s a problem. It’s the actions of things around her, as well as Tilda’s expressions that allude to something being amiss. Then, when she goes outside and sees the chaos of the world around her, but not around everyone else she’s concerned.

Either through allegory for those older readers or as a read-to-me book for those younger readers Tilda Tries Again is a homerun. The interest for the book spans any elementary school-age kid. A great example of this was the fact that I left the book on my desk for a period and I saw a fifth-grade student reading it. A. Don’t touch things on my desk without permission. B. What did you think of the book? The student said that they enjoyed it and especially loved the art.

Tilda Tries Again is one of the Big Bright Feelings picture books and is by Tom Percival, available on Bloomsbury Children’s Books.

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