By Julia Cook
Wilma Jean worries about nearly everything, and her mom and teacher teach her to split her worries into two piles: the ones she can act on, and the ones she can only set down for now.
Wilma Jean's worry machine runs all day and never shuts off. Will it rain? Will anyone sit with her at lunch? Will she drop the ball in PE where everyone can see? Her stomach hurts, her hands sweat, her heart pounds, and staying home starts to sound better than any of it. Her mom listens instead of brushing it off, and her teacher hands her something to actually do: sort the worries into two piles. The ones she can act on, like practicing catching or asking a friend to sit with her, get a plan. The ones she can't touch, like the weather, go into a spot where she can leave them, so they stop riding around with her all day.
The two-pile sort is what makes this one worth having. A child who worries about a lot may be giving every worry the same size, so the spelling test and the tornado land just as hard, and the sorting question shrinks the stack: can I do something about this, or not? It's also the most matter-of-fact book on this shelf about how worry feels in the body. The sore stomach, the racing heart, the sweaty hands all get named and drawn. If your child has been reporting a stomach ache most school mornings and can't tell you why, seeing it spelled out as part of worrying can be the thing that clicks. Cook writes long, chatty, lots-of-words-per-page books, and this one reads more like a kind adult walking you through something than like a story. That suits some children and loses others.