How Do You Feel?

by Lizzy Rockwell

Do you feel happy? Sad? Silly? Angry? This simple book helps children and parents talk about feelings, and includes a Feelings Faces Poster!

With simple, sparse language, and bright, expressive illustrations, Lizzy Rockwell introduces very young readers to a wide range of emotions. Detailed art encourages identification and discussion of the different characters' emotional reactions, and serves as a springboard for discussion on emotional intelligence, self-regulation, and coping skills.

The playground is the perfect place to witness lots of different feelings! A girl is happy when playing with a puppy. Another girl is angry when a boy knocks over her drink. And the boy is sorry.

Readers will learn to identify feelings in themselves and in others in this simple, but clever book by a prominent preschool nonfiction author-illustrator. Beautiful, detailed spreads show panoramic views of the playground action, while close-ups focus on specific incidents, body language, and facial expressions. The sparse text encourages children to describe the action and tell the story themselves, using context clues in the art and their own understanding of the emotions portrayed.

Turn the dust jacket around for a beautiful Feelings Faces poster, which collects the emotions portrayed in the book in one long spread!

Genres: Picture Books, Emotion, Childrens, Storytime, Realistic Fiction, Fiction, Juvenile

26 pages, Board Book

Published February 23, 2021

About the author

Lizzy Rockwell is an illustrator whose artwork can be seen in picture books, magazines, games and on walls. She studied art and art history at Connecticut College, and drawing and illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Lizzy is the illustrator of over 25 children's books by a variety of authors including her mother, Anne Rockwell. She is the author/illustrator of eleven books including The All-Together Quilt, Plants Feed Me, How Do You Feel?, Good Enough to Eat: A Kid's Guide to Food and Nutrition, and The Busy Body Book: A Kid's Guide to Fitness.

Lizzy has two grown sons, and lives and works in Bridgeport, CT with her husband, Ken Alcorn, a high school social studies teacher. Lizzy likes to quilt, cook, hike, paddle, and grow things in her garden.

Reviews

[Mrs. Walker Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picture books are a great tool to help children learn how to identify the emotions that they are feeling, discuss the situations that might spark these feelings and discuss coping strategies for when these feelings arise.
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How Do You Feel? By Lizzy Rockwell is a great introductory book about feelings for children. Each page of this book shows a child and the emotion that they are experiencing. On the left side of the page layout, you will find an illustration is of a child’s face that shows a visual representation of an emotion. On the right side of the page layout, you will find an example of why that child is exhibiting that emotion.
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The organization of this book makes this a fantastic choice for extending the conversation at home with a parental figure or in the classroom with an educator. For example, one page shows a girl feeling mad and we see an up close drawing of a young girls face with red cheeks, mouth open and furrowed brows. Even without reading the text, children will be able to identify that this girl is mad or angry. The next page illustrates why she is feeling that way. Children will enjoy looking at the illustration to identify what happened to cause the emotion. In this example, two children are playing with a ball that accidentally knocks over the young girls drink as she was enjoying a picnic lunch.
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💡After allowing time to look at the illustrations, ask questions such as...
▪️”Why is the little girl mad?”
▪️”How would you feel if this happened to you?”
▪️”When we are feeling mad like this, what can we do to calm ourself down?”
▪️”What do you think should happen next?”.
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The book includes a poster of the emotional facial cues of diverse children. This would be great to use for referencing the non-verbal ways we can identify and communicate our feelings. It would also be a great addition to a calming corner in the classroom or in your home. Lizzy Rockwell

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is a 3.5 for me. I really like how the book's creator uses only minimal text so that readers must rely on the illustrations and their own interpretations of those scenes to determine why the children are feeling certain emotions. Getting in touch with our feelings or even just identifying them is important in self-understanding and self-regulation, and this book just might help youngsters understand that and realize that emotions are a part of life and not something to deny. some of the scenes are even linked as one girl's feelings are soothed after someone else feels sorry and cleans up the mess he's made. While the pages feature children playing in a park, there are also adults watching in the background. Not only do the endpapers feature 10 different feelings, but the book jacket can be removed and used as a poster on which the feelings are displayed, allowing youngsters to point to the image and word that best expresses how they are feeling now. As more schools and classrooms focus on social and emotional learning, this book might provide a launching place for conversations about emotions and how to deal with them.

[Jared White · Rating 4 out of 5]

A simple book about emotions and some of the facial expressions which often go with those emotions.

I like that you can look on the two-page spread near the beginning and, if you look closely, see the foundations already laid for situations which are going to happen later in the book. For one-on-one reading, this could be nice to have little ones try to look for these clues on the second or third reading. For instance, you can see the little girl pouring her her juice which later gets spilled, you can see the bird laying on the ground which later saddens a boy, etc.

As with any book or chart with emotions, you just have to keep in mind that they are demonstrating some of the most common facial expressions associated with them. For instance, when I am "calm" I don't always or even often have a small smile on my face and the "brave" face, to me, looks more like a determined facial expression, but I suppose those are almost the same thing.

Another thing I like is that there is a lot is the racial diversity.

They have a boy be the one who is expressing sadness through actually crying and that is definitely a positive thing to demonstrate.

[Teresa Bateman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Children from a variety of ethnicities are playing in a park. If you check the opening two-page spread you can see that a variety of emotions are in play. The author asks, "how do you feel?" From that point on each two-page spread focuses on one child. On the left-hand page you see their face so you can guess how they are feeling. The right-hand full-page illustration reveals the cause. Possible solutions to negative emotions are also offered in the ending two-page spread. Sometimes young children have trouble identifying their emotions, and coping with them. This would be a good book to help them with this skill.

[Sarah Threlkeld · Rating 3 out of 5]

How do you feel? Perhaps you are sad because you dropped your ice cream on the ground or shy because you don't know any of the other kids on the playground. Each two-page spread of this book asks the reader if they feel a certain emotion, which is accompanied by a close-up illustration of a child's face showing that feeling and then a full-page illustration that provides information about why that child is feeling that way. This is a very straight-forward book that expertly weaves together the different experiences of eleven children at a park. A solid classroom and family read aloud for talking with young people about different emotions.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Age: Toddler-young preschool
Nature: Playground
SEL: Emotions

Children are given an invitation to say how they feel through observing a park with a variety of children experiencing a range of emotions. Each spread features a child's face and a scenario that explains that one emotion. Emotions include happy, sad, silly, mad, sorry, scared, calm, brave, shy, and friendly. Simple and incredibly effective for curious tots.

[Aolund · Rating 3 out of 5]

Each page of this simple books asks a "How do you feel?" question: Do you feel scared? happy? shy? etc., and shows a child in a low-stakes situation where they might experience that emotion (i.e. the scared child is frightened by a spider). The pictures show children of different races, though all with fairly light skin tones and thin, able bodies. Absolutely useful for identifying emotions at home or in the classroom.

Themes: Social emotional

[Angel Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book follows different situations as well as character's emotions in response to the situations. The characters all experience ranges of emotions depending on what's happening. This book is a great resource to have in the classroom to introduce the concept of emotions for young children. The book focuses on emotional intelligence, coping skills, and emotional regulation. These topics will be discussed in the classroom at some point and this book serves as a nice introduction.

[Cybelle MacLean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Using bright fun colors and easy to read and understand text, this book is a showing of different emotions. The book covers emotions like happy, sad, friendly, calm, and shy. These emotions are accompanied by pictures of kids feeling these different emotions while in various situations on a playground. The whole thing is fun and sweet and can be a great tool in letting children start to understand the idea of feeling very many emotions.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Childrens picture book. This book has very detailed illustrations and minimal text. This allows a reader to dive into the pictures for evidence-- why is this person feeling this way? How do you know? A diverse set of children and the simple focus on emotions make this a great tool to use for identifying emotions.

[Josie B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Emotional intelligence is a hot topic in storytime this year, and this looks like a strong choice to use with my preschoolers. I like the large colorful pictures, the expressiveness of the children’s faces, and the way each emotion emotion contributes to the story. There’s lots to talk about as we read it. I plan to revisit this review and update it after I share it with the 3-5 year olds.

[Ersa S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book asks the reader how they are feeling, going across emotions such as happy, sad, mad, ect., but not going beyond that point. It could be used as a great tool for toddlers to identify emotions they may be feeling from the paired images on the pages. I would have loved to see more of a storyline element to a book like this.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A picture book that goes over various emotions and shows pictures of children with facial expressions that go with those emotions. I like that it represents a variety of children and that it is very simple. It would be a good book for teaching kids about emotions and self-awareness.

[Molly Cluff (Library!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A basic overview of a variety of feelings with kids on a playground. Very easy to discuss with kids what is going on in the pictures that is making the kids feel a certain way (angry that their drink spilled, happy that they are with a puppy, etc)

[Terresa Wellborn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An ideal book to share with toddler/preK through K/1st grade. There is very little text plus the illustrations will provoke valuable conversations about our emotions, why we feel what we feel and what we can do about it.

Themes: emotions
Ages: toddler-1st grade
Pub year: 2019

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple introduction to a range of human feelings.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gonna be great for toddler storytime - big easily-read illustrations and pretty easy to translate into Spanish or ASL. "Let me see what a BRAVE kid looks like!"

[Mary Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good for littles or the neurally diverse to identify feelings.

[Gabi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple words with pictures that repeat on both pages to get the emotion across.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love a good Lizzy, however she shocked me with the dead bird!

[Colorado Buck · Rating 4 out of 5]

love it, short and sweet and to the point on how you feel. you can have kids make the face of that feeling. could be very fun.

[Meredith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Children at a playground show a variety of different emotions.

This book would be great to help young readers to identify their emotions and learn emotional self-regulation.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty straightforward, no fluff look at feelings. I found it a little boring.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the opportunity to discuss the illustrations and the facial expressions on the illustrations.

[Alyssa Gudenburr · Rating 3 out of 5]

CONTENT WARNING: death

Poor boy finds a dead bird on the sad page. Otherwise, a GREAT feelings book.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great details in the pictures, wonderful read-aloud potential to a group or single toddler.

[Miss Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A toddler and up book about how different children are feeling. Very simple and all questions.

[Andréa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note: I received an F&G at ALA Midwinter 2020.

[charlene.librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a wonderful Rockwell title to ask children about how they feel. Bright illustration to enjoy and diverse characters included.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good book that talks about feelings.