Miss Debby's Best-Loved Children's Books

November 2023

Teaching Kids About Emotion

By Debby Block

It is essential for children of all ages to recognize emotions. Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and understand one’s own emotions as well as the emotions of others. The development of emotional intelligence in children enhances self-awareness as well as empathy. Here are some wonderful children’s books that aid in educating children about emotions. For babies and toddlers, I recommend books that identify facial expressions. The PJ Library book “My Face Book” is a delightful book for encouraging social-emotional development in babies and toddlers. Happily, this board book is also available in Hebrew. “Baby’s Feelings: A First Book of Emotions” (published by Little Hippo Books) has a large variety of multicultural photos of babies and each page identifies a different emotion. Both of these books would be perfect for children ages birth-2 years.

“Glad Monster, Sad Monster: A Book About Feelings” by the popular authors Ed Emberley and Anne Miranda makes children laugh every time I read it! Each page identifies a different emotion and each page is accompanied by a colorful, comical monster mask to peak through that demonstrates the feeling. I recommend this charming, interactive book for children ages 2-4.

“The Color Monster: A Story about Emotions” tells the story of a cute monster that has all his emotions jumbled up. A little girl shows the monster many different feelings with each emotion represented by a distinct color. Author Anna Llenas is an art therapist who specializes in art and emotional education. She has completely succeeded in this book that I recommend for children ages 2-5.

“The Way I Feel” by Janan Cain is one of my favorite books about emotions. Each beautifully illustrated page has rhyming text and at the end of the page, your child can try to guess how the child in the book is feeling. The book ends like this: “Feelings come and feelings go. I never know what they’ll be. Silly or angry, happy or sad —They’re all a part of me!” Highly recommended for children ages 3-6.

An all-time classic about anger and frustration is Judith Viorst’s book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.” As you can guess, everything goes wrong for elementary school student Alexander, from gum in his hair, to being too crowded in the car on the way to school, to lima beans for supper. Alexander decides he wants to move to Australia. This book is a great way to teach children that it is okay to have bad days. Children in kindergarten-3rd grade will love this perennial favorite.

For readers ages 8-11, I have just discovered a series by Free Spirit Publishing, which helps deal with emotions. “How to Take the Grrrr Out of Anger” by Elizabeth Verdick and Marjorie Lisovskis provides practical steps to solving anger problems in a humorous and easy-to-read format. This series also includes the books “How to Take the Ache Out of Mistakes” and “Stress Can Really Get on Your Nerves.” I wish I had books like these when I was growing up!