A buoyant guide to childhood emotions.
Tatchell’s picture book sequel to How To Fix Your Parents (2025) invites kids to name the weird and wonderful creatures who represent their inner feelings.
This book intriguingly explores the concepts of emotions and urges, first depicting them as colorful fantasy characters wrapped around a young girl’s head. The key to living with them and making sure they don’t control you, Tatchell argues, is to name and understand them. There are positive feelings, such as huggable cloud-marshmallow Love (aka Cuddles, Snugs, or Smoo) and striped, fizzy-brainstorm-haired Curiosity (Wow, Hmmmm, or Whoa). A hug from Love will stop you from feeling afraid, and a nudge from Curiosity will help you to embrace new experiences. But there are also feelings that can lead you astray, such as ogre-like, pear-shaped Hangry (Grumple-Lump, Snarkle, or Din-Din), or the spike-backed sumo-toad No-Fairs (Stompy Joes, Garumphs, or Sulk). Hangry should be appeased with food and drink; No-Fairs will lose their spikes if given time to soften up. Tatchell narrates in pleasant, ABCB rhyming verse, effectively identifying such feelings as Squirmy Worms (the cause of fidgeting), Tummy-Ache (nerves), Too-Muches (sensory overload), Frustration, Rage, and The Sillies. Perko’s illustrations are Dr. Seuss-like with their vibrant colors and zaniness. The boys and girls learning to coexist with them are portrayed with a range of skin tones.
A buoyant guide to childhood emotions.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2026
ISBN: 9781998718238
Page Count: 31
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
