Feelings - IgniteLit

Title: Feelings
Author: Aliki
Major Themes: Comics, Emotions
Synopsis: Comics help children to understand their emotions.

Emotions seem to be a hard concept for young children to grasp. It’s also a subject I don’t think about teaching them, but I found it interesting that Sonlight Curriculum incorporated Feelings by Aliki into the new Kindergarten program that I’m using for my 6-year-old. She really enjoyed this book, since it’s told almost entirely in pictures.

All sorts of emotions are explored in this book. First, the idea that emotions exist is explored, with a little girl teaching a little boy what feelings are. Then, happy and excited feelings are shown. After that, conflicting emotions are described—pride vs jealousy when someone does something well. Other emotions that are explored include grief, boredom, or being shy around people.

The emotions are illustrated through a series of cartoon pictures on each page. Sometimes, an onlooker will describe the emotions he is seeing in someone else, or sometimes dialogue will show how people are feeling. Empathy with others is shown, too, on various pages.

The cartoonish aspect of the book makes it really attractive to my children. They love to read comics, so this really appeals. The pictures are colorful, and since the book was first published in the 1980s, it has the nice feeling of books from that era (I don’t appreciate a lot of more modern books).

No warnings!