Little People Big Emotions is a children’s picture book about how the body and mind can behave and how to control these big emotions. Written by Kylie Mort, illustrated by Tiina Morton and published by Serenity Press.
This book explores the different ways a person can feel and how they might think when they feel these big emotions. Showing children that no matter how they think, someone will always support them and know how to help them feel safe and loved.
When reading this book, I felt it perfectly captures the main areas of mental health that children and adults experience all the time but can’t really explain them. Saying that your mind feels like a blender, is a perfect analogy of what it is like when you have many thoughts running around in your head and can’t straighten them out.
The illustrations perfectly capture these elements of big emotions with vibrant pastel colours. Blue Bear and I particularly like the page with butterflies and how it represents how you feel when you can’t settle your body or mind. Blue Bear told me that he would love to be able to paint a butterfly as well as Tina Morten, he says he can’t get the curves of the wings right.
Little People Big Emotions is a book that explores big issues for young people in a simple yet caring way.
This book review is written as part of a Blog Tour Campaign in conjunction with Books On Tour PR & Marketing.
Educational activities:
Writing
- Describe how you feel when a big emotion takes over, and what you can do to calm yourself down.
Drama
- Role play a big emotion. This is a good activity to try when a child is unable to verbalise or explain what they are feeling.
Visual Arts
- Draw a picture of a big emotion
- Create a comic strip of how you felt when experiencing a big emotion and what you did to overcome the feeling.
