By Jo Witek
Each feeling gets described from the inside: how happy floats your heart up light, how sadness sits heavy, how fear makes it race. A bright red heart is die-cut through every page, growing and shrinking to match.
A little girl walks you through her feelings by where each one lands in her body. Happy makes her heart feel 'as light as a balloon.' Sad makes it 'heavy as an elephant.' Brave 'grows as big as a lion's roar,' and scared 'beats so fast, and I feel like running away.' On every page a bright red heart is die-cut right through the paper, big and open or shrunk down small, so your child can poke a finger through the actual shape of the feeling.
Most feelings books stop at naming the feeling. This one ties each one to something you can feel in the chest — a light flutter, a heavy weight, a fast beat — which can be the start of a child catching a feeling early, while it's still just a sensation and not yet a meltdown. The heart-shaped cut-out gives little hands something to do on every page, so the idea stays physical instead of floating off into words. And the heavy feelings get the same gentle, unhurried treatment as the happy ones, so a tentative child can meet sadness or fear inside a book that stays calm and lovely the whole way through.