What Are You Feeling?: A picture book of your emotions

by The School of Life, Daniel Gray-Barnett (Illustrator)

“This is a book for sharing. The grown-up who reads this book with you is saying that they really do want to listen and understand. They’re saying that it’s good to take time to talk about a feeling even if it seems very complicated…” In the first of a series of children's books aimed at better understanding and articulating emotions, comes What Are Your Feeling?  Taking a deep dive into 20 different feelings from sensitive to proud, quiet to mischievous, this book helps the child identify their emotions in ways that are healthy and easy to understand.  With vivid  illustrations that bring each feeling to life by the award-winning Daniel Gray Barnett, this book is a wonderful tool for self awareness, social-emotional learning, and sharing how we feel.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens

60 pages, Hardcover

Published February 6, 2024

About the author

The School of Life is a global organisation helping people lead more fulfilled lives.

We believe that the journey to finding fulfilment begins with self-knowledge. It is only when we have a sense of who we really are that we can make reliable decisions, particularly around love and work.

Sadly, tools and techniques for developing self-knowledge and finding fulfilment are hard to find – they’re not taught in schools, in universities, or in workplaces. Too many of us go through life without ever really understanding what’s going on in the recesses of our minds.

That’s why we created The School of Life; a resource for helping us understand ourselves, for improving our relationships, our careers and our social lives - as well as for helping us find calm and get more out of our leisure hours. We do this through films, workshops, books and gifts - as well as through a warm and supportive community.

Reviews

[Ryan]

This book is fine. It sets out to do something and it does it. It is a tad bit long, but this isn’t a “read before bedtime” type of book. This is an informational book about different feelings and how to talk about those feelings with other people. This book serves its purpose.

[Kirin]

Whether expressing and identifying your own emotions comes easy for a person or not, everyone can benefit from emotional maturity and awareness. This 57 page book caught my attention because of the visible Muslim in the illustrations, and while it is undoubtedly tokenism, I still appreciate it, because a book such as this really needs to provide visual representation to connect with the audience and help them to see themselves in the words. The book is a bit lengthy at 57 pages, and at times a bit text heavy, but it very easily would lend itself to classroom or small group discussions. The book breaks down 20 emotions and walks the reader and audience through 20 emotions in an easy, tender, often comical manner.

[Eviana]

This is a great book to introduce to kids (and even adults) about feelings. That all emotions are welcome. It's okay to experience feelings as long as we express them well. There are many types of emotions that are rarely introduced, for example, bored, silly, and quiet. All of them are very relatable and we experience them daily.
I'm very excited to read more children's books from The School of Life. One thing that I recommend is maybe to increase the font a little bit, or make the text more interesting for younger kids.
Overall I'm so happy to receive the digital ARC and can't wait to read it to my students.

[Kate Reasoner]

We liked that this book went through feelings that aren’t typically found in books. Amazed, board, mischievous, curious are all feelings you don’t typically you hear about. The reading age as whole is above 7 (for us) due to size and complexity, but it opens the opportunity to discuss some of the feelings that may be happening with an adult. Reading a few pages on their own for reference could easily be done now. Enjoyed the productive ways to deal with feeling and sometimes feelings don’t need to be changed.

[Katrisa]

This is a great kid-friendly way to describe different emotions. This book talks about the importance of our range of emotions and why even our uncomfortable emotions are part of being human. I look forward to using this book in my classroom. I like that there are different pages for emotions like sad and hurt so you can talk about how those emotions are alike and different. This book can be a valuable resource for either parents or anyone who works with children.
Thank you to Netgalley and The School of Life for an advance reading copy of this book for review.

[Becca]

Any book that teaches kids about different feelings is a plus for me! As a mom of an almost 5-year-old, this is super helpful. This book talks about 20 different feelings, not just happy and sad as some do.: my favorites are amazed, curious, and sorry. My daughter is still a little too young for all of the words and explanations in this book, but I look forward to using it with her in the next few years as she is starting school. Thank you to NetGalley and The School of Life for access to this ARC.

[Janet Owen]

The descriptions of feelings are spot on and will be helpful for children to articulate and understand their emotions. It will probably need to be read to a child in small chunks as it could become overwhelming. As a picture book, I found the illustrations little disappointing, though I did like the use of colour.

[Raena]

My son is autistic and this has helped him so much. We have read it a few times and I cannot wait for this for come out in physical copy so I can get my hands on it. I’ve also recommended it to my ASD groups for their children too. Thank you.

[Alyssa]

I was approved for this book on NetGalley

A great book for understanding emotions. Young readers will be able to better identify what they're feeling and how they are feeling. Color coded emotions also help in separating the different emotions/feelings.

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through Edelweiss.

[Sarah Kratochvilova]

Lovely illustrations and well written explanation of feelings to children. Really liked emotions like Confusion, Mischievousness and amazement were mentioned as well.

[Lori]

Lots of text, but meets objective and serves an important purpose. Would be useful for parents, school counselors, and teachers.

[Danielle Mccoy]

A great book describing all kinds of emotions to kids to help them explore and explain them to others.

[Sunday Dutro]

nonfiction children’s picture book detailing loads of different emotions and making them easier to recognize and differentiate between. Highly recommend.

[Kitchen Sink Books]

We all have feelings, they are a natural part of who we are and there are many of them, but when we have these feelings we may not always quite understand which one we have. Maybe we don’t know why we are experiencing a particular feeling, maybe we seem to experience more than one at a time. Surprisingly enough feelings can be complex and trying to explain or understand them is not straightforward either. The School of Life are publishers of books, games and tools for learning for children, introducing them to a range of ideas. What Are You Feeling? is their latest publication, perfect for both school and home.

When you experience a feeling do you know how to describe it, do you just choose a word that you think will fit? It is probably not surprising that we do this, in this book alone twenty different feelings are discussed, and we learn how to describe the way we feel in new ways as well as how to explore why we might be feeling this way. Take for example feeling angry, it is shown to us in the book like a volcano erupting for we might, we might have said we are okay and then suddenly find it is too much and we have exploded. We are reassured to know that it is not bad or wrong to feel this way, that we should talk about it to someone we trust. The book goes on to explore emotions such as boredom, pride, being independent or lonely. We are guided through each with explanations and support. A unique and supportive book.

[Marte]

I got this on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

* Me me to when reading this* : hmmm, this gives the same vibes and kinda the same well-thought out reflections of emotions as 'An Emotional Managerie'.
*Also me finding out at the end of the book that it is legit in the same series of books*: 🙈😅❤️

I really enjoyed this tho! It reflects well on different emotions, and although I did not like it just as much as I did 'An Emotional Managerie', it is still high up there! Definitely on the list of my fave books about emotions and feelings I have read so far, and love how it explains them in a normal, everyday way! Definitely recommend checking this one out!