Hello, I'm Patrick Adams. And I'm Caroline Legere.
And this is Librarians of Littles, a podcast
where we discuss books, give makerspace ideas,
and give tips or tricks for working with our
youngest learners in the library setting. This
week we have two books about emotions. As the
school year starts, our students often have some
big emotions. They have some big feelings about
the beginning of the school year. And to be fair,
a lot of us educators do too. So we decided that
we would read, we would discuss some books about
emotions. And so we have two excellent books
to share today. The first of which is called
The Boy with Big, Big Feelings. This book is
published by Beaming Books in 2019. The author
is Brittany Nguyen Le and the illustrator is
Jacob Suva. This book is not on any lists or
won any awards, but it's still a really good
book. And so we'll discuss our author a little
bit. Brittany Wyn Lee is an author, editor, and
a United Methodist pastor living in Louisiana
with her husband and son. She has a master's
degree in nonprofit administration and holds
a local pastor licensure. And she has worked
for over a decade in faith and justice based
creative community building. Some of her other
books, she actually these big, big books are
part of a series. So she's also done the kid
with big, big ideas and the girl with big, big
questions, both of which were illustrated by
Jacob Suva. And she's also done good night body.
Finding Calm from Head to Toe, which is illustrated
by Borghild Fahlberg. Well done. The illustrator,
Jacob Suva, is an illustrator of picture books
living in upstate New York with his family of
two sons, one dog named Ruby, one cat with a
sneezing problem, and one turtle named Michelangelo.
He used to think his imagination and creativity
was a curse, but now he sees them as the bits
that make up great stories. He has illustrated
a lot of other books, such as Butterflies Are
Pretty, Gross, by Rosemary Mosco, Where Does
a Pirate Go Potty? by Don Bab, oh dear, Proko,
Prachovet, Prachovet? I don't know. Yes, that
one. Yes. Hide and seek ladybugs by Paul Bright.
Why is for Yet? A Growth Mindset Alphabet by
Shannon Anderson, Pedro's Pan, A Gold Rush Story
by Matthew Laisley, and Flowers Are Pretty Weird
by Rosemary Mosco. Yeah. And so this book is
the story of a boy that has very strong and powerful
emotions, but he feels that he needs to hide
them because he feels like he's probably the
only one with these big feelings. When he meets
a girl who also has these big emotions, they
become friends and realize that everyone has
big emotions and that everyone should feel comfortable
with those emotions. And so this is just a really
positive book. It's got this wonderful message.
There's a rhyme scheme to it which I enjoy because
I think that kind of keeps students' attention
a little bit more because there's the rhymes
and so there's a little bit of predictability
and guessing of what's coming next. The illustrations
are wonderful. I really love the illustrations
because the pictures and the colors do a great
job of showing how the character is feeling.
And I think this is a really important message
for our young students that your emotions, your
feelings are valid and they're okay to have and
it's okay to show your emotions. I mean, sometimes
we're going to need to regulate those emotions,
but it's okay to feel like that and it's okay
to to be emotional and to understand that everybody
feels those emotions. It's important to understand
that it's not just you feeling that way. Everybody
has those feelings and they're valid. So it's
a really sweet story. Like I said, I think the
illustrations are just so cool. I love the use
of color to show the feelings, which I think
that's just... you could go through and just
look at the book and just look at the kind of
colors and do a lot of analysis on the way the
colors are used to show how the character feels
in different situations, which is really cool.
So I would definitely give this book a five out
of five. I think it's excellent. And like I said,
really important message for our pre -K students,
because they are just balls of emotion. This
is something that I think they can all relate
to. And so, yeah. Wonderful book. I agree. I
hadn't read this book before you suggested it,
but it's really, like you said, it has an incredibly
important message. Our pre -K kids in general
are always a big ball of emotions, like all the
time. Emotional regulation is a thing. It's a
thing for adults. There's grownups that go...
Absolutely. There's a reason why there's anger
management therapists and such. Yeah, everyone
feels the feelings. And it's really just what
you do with the feelings and how to regulate
it that matters. And it's important for I think
there's a lot of kids that they they get very
confused because they think that it's not okay
to feel sad and to cry. And they think it's not
okay to be angry because they associate being
angry with yelling and screaming or kicking or
something like that and they kind of get confused
because it's not the feeling that's getting you
in trouble. It's your actions and like it's important
to teach those skills. That's a big piece that's
missing from a lot of our little ones lives in
general is that emotional regulation. In general,
so if we can kind of teach them that it's okay
to feel the things and This is how you manage
the things and it's it is a lifelong thing and
even grown -ups have trouble regulating their
emotions sometimes and you know Don't worry about
it. We'll get there. We'll work on it together.
And these are some of the strategies you can
try it's it's Incredibly important because if
you don't figure out that emotional regulation
piece in your classroom early on in the school
year, like you will not accomplish anything meaningful
for the kids. Like that's the kind of an incredibly
crucial part of that, their foundation for their
lives in general. And especially when they're
starting school and they're emotional anyway
because they're in a brand new environment. Some
of them have never left home before. It's scary.
They've never been away from their grownups.
Some of them have, but the majority have not.
And this is, they think they might be left at
school forever. They don't know what's going
on. This is where they're just, their people
are gone. So they're extra emotional anyway.
So this is a great time to talk about it at the
beginning of the year. And it's, it's just really
important for them to learn that it's not their
emotions that are, you know, the problem. It's
how they, it's just learning how to deal with
the emotions. Absolutely. Yeah. So definitely
five out of five for me, I say. Absolutely. Yeah.
And so if we're going to use this as a, to incorporate
a makerspace activity, Honestly, for this one,
the illustrations inspired me. I think that what
I would like to do with this book and with my
students is to get some white paper and fold
it into four so that you have like four rectangles
to work with. And you'll probably, honestly,
especially if you do this near the beginning
of the school year, you're gonna have to pre
-fold those pages so they're ready to go for
the kids. And that's fine. But I would give them
some that. paper folded into four squares or
four rectangles and some crayons and Let the
kids draw themselves showing different emotions
in each of those boxes like What like and maybe
if you could show them if they could show themselves
Like why they feel that way like what makes them
feel happy what makes them feel sad what makes
them feel angry What makes them feel nervous
or afraid kind of thing? Like I think that would
be a really cool thing. And if you could, if
you're at the point, like if you don't do this
near the necessarily at the very beginning of
the year, but if you could have the conversation
about like the way the artist uses colors to
show certain emotions and that kind of thing,
the kids might be able to use some of those colors
to help express themselves. So like red might
be more like the angry feeling where blue is
going to be more of the sad feeling and that
kind of thing. And I think that it would be a
really cool way to let the kids express some
of their feelings and be creative. And I think
it would be a really cool way you get to know
the kids. You get to learn a lot about the kids
from what they show you in those images and those
pictures, which would be really just kind of
enlightening, I think. So I think it would be
a fun thing to try out. Yeah. I like it, and
I like that it's drawing different kinds of feelings
too, so they're not getting stuck on one. I like
that. It makes them think about how they would
feel in different situations. And you might even,
like, you could even, like, before you gave them
the paper, you got, you could, like, as a group
brainstorm a lot of different feelings and then
have to pick. what for they want to do that way
they can't just be like well i can't think of
what makes me afraid okay well then pick a different
feeling like you know yeah like for sure yeah
yeah i like it makes them kind of think about
a lot of different feelings it's great yeah all
right so as we are getting personally by the
time this Episode airs we're gonna be it's gonna
be about the first week of school for us, but
other places are going to be a Couple weeks out
from school starting some of them might have
already started but near the beginning of the
year It's really important that our library has
a welcoming environment that the kids come in
and feel comfortable and safe and and so different
like Setting up your library so that you have
that welcoming environment, especially at the
beginning of the year should always be a welcoming
environment, but the beginning of the year is
that first part where you're roping the kids
in and setting the foundation for the year. So
it's really important at the beginning of the
year. So our library management tip is making
sure that that library environment is welcoming.
We were talking about it and having some like
beginning of the year book displays, having like
even just. little things like having some soft
seating for the kids to be able to come in and
use. I'm going to use your suggestion from a
previous podcast. I'm looking forward to setting
up a bulletin board of the books we read this
year. And so I want to have that set up so they
can see that we're going to be keeping track
of all the cool books that we're going to read
this year, that kind of thing. You know, maybe
the first couple times they come in you don't
have all of the super harsh lights on you know
Like if you can dim the lights a little bit and
make it more like of a warm calming vibe calm
vibe, you know, yeah that kind of thing anything
that you can do to make it so it's it's Comfortable
and kind of sets the children's mind at ease
Another part of that is also just setting up
those boundaries and those expectations and those
routines, because especially our youngest students,
if they know what to expect, if they know where
the lines are of what they can get away with
and what's not acceptable, and that you're going
to be there to remind them of how to act, all
of those things actually are really comforting
for the students to know that you're there to
provide those things for them. And so building
that environment, building those expectations,
all of that truly ends up helping in the long
run to have a positive year. And so anything
that you can do, my wife is super crafty. And
so like we have, I have some old t -shirts, like
superhero t -shirts that she made into pillowcases.
And so we're going to have some pillows that
kids can sit on when it's time for them to kind
of like... read to self, they're gonna have some
soft seating like that that they can grab and
sit and read and things like that to help make
it a welcoming and comfortable environment for
them. Doing just little things like that that
make it so it's not a high stress, high anxiety
kind of room. That's one great thing about libraries
and the librarian is like, we don't take grades.
We're not evaluating the kids so much. We might
be trying to figure out what kind of books they
like and that kind of thing, but it's not like
a performative evaluation of you did or didn't
do this correctly. And so making sure that the
environment doesn't feel like that's what we're
doing, like that we're judging the students.
Because we're one of the few people that we don't
have to. So many other, like all the other teachers,
that's what they're doing is they're trying to
grade and judge and see where this kid's deficits
are and trying to fill those gaps and that kind
of, which is important. But the kids feel that.
And so having the library be a place where they
can come in and just be like, no one is judging
me based on a performance or like letting them
take that big sigh of like deep breath in, like
to relieve that is important. And so anything
that you can do to make the... the library yeah
less stressful you know like if you can like
some ambient background music something you know
anything that you can do to help with that for
sure yeah all the calming vibes in the world
yeah yeah i was in an art uh a year or two ago
and for a student who did not qualify for services
and they were asking me how he does and such
and I was giving him my feedback and everything
but they were asking me how good his language
is and I was like he doesn't stand out but I
also haven't taken specific notes or anything
because we don't when we're in the library like
I want it to be a welcoming environment. I want
all kids to be accepted. And I'm not going to
take notes on anything because that's not part
of my job. My job is to make sure that they just
love learning and they love literacy and they
are coming back to the library. Like I'm not
going to be taking notes on like if there's a
big problem, I will, but there's not a big problem
here. So no notes are taken. Thank you so much.
Like judgment free zone. In here. Yeah, I agree.
All the calming vibes at the beginning of the
year, especially. It's at the beginning of the
year is just for rapport building to me, really.
Just building a positive relationship so everybody
wants to come back and feels loved and feels
invited. Yeah. And that's the thing. That's what
the library should be, is that welcoming place
where everyone can feel comfortable. So yeah,
there's judgment freeze on, you know? The library
is for everyone. Yeah, it's true. Well, the next
book that we're gonna talk about today is called
Bear Feels Sad. It is part of the bear series
by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman. It was published
by Margaret K. McCot -Edler Bear. Oh dear, I
cannot say this name. Margaret K. I practice
it in my brain and I still can't say it. McKendler.
I did it. McKendler. Okay. I should have practiced
it out loud instead of in my brain. Lesson learned.
Margaret K. McKendler books 2025. Anyway, thank
you. Go team. All right. Um, this book has not
won any awards, um, on its own, but it is part
of that 15 book. Bear Series, the first of which
was Bear Snores On. Some of the other books in
the series have won awards and been on state
lists. Some of the awards they've won have been
the CCBC Choice Book Award, the Charlotte Zolotow
Award, and ALSC Notable Books. And Karma Wilson
was the only child to a single... a single mother.
She grew up in rural Idaho. Without much else
to do for entertainment, Karma spent lots of
time in the great outdoors. She was also a voracious
reader. By the time she was 11, she was reading
a novel a day. Although her mother was a writer
and Karma loved to read, she didn't consider
becoming a writer herself because she thought
it was too boring and mundane. However, after
having her own children and purchasing her first
home computer, she decided to try her hand at
writing. After three years of rejection, she
finally got Bare Snores On published in 2002.
I didn't realize that was her first book, and
I didn't know that she tried that long to get
it published either. Three years, yeah. I mean,
that's impressive that she had the fortitude
to continue pushing on. I know, right? And now,
she's written over 40 books. 15 of those are
the bare books. A few of the other titles that
she's written include, I Love Your Face, illustrated
by A .G. Ford, A Dog Named Doug, illustrated
by Matt Myers, and Where Is Home, Little Pip,
illustrated by Jane Chapman. Jane Chapman is
the illustrator. She studied illustration at
Brighton University and currently lives in Dorset.
She is both a children's author and illustrator
and has illustrated over a hundred books to date.
In the beginning of her career she published
work under the pseudonym Jack Tickle. Many of
those books are still being published today.
And so she has illustrated all 15 of the Bear
books from the series. And some of the books
that she has written and illustrated include
Mole's Quiet Place, The Littlest Christmas Tree,
Goodbye Bear, and I Love You With All My Heart.
Yeah, I didn't realize Jane Chapman did that
much work and that she'd written over a hundred
or illustrated over a hundred books. I know.
And she's busy. I know. In one of my other libraries,
I had a ton of Jack Tickle books. I didn't know
they were her. They're all I don't know if you've
seen any of them. They're all board books and
they're all like for toddlers. And a lot of them
have sounds like they're one of those books that
where you push the button and make the sound
with it. Oh, OK. A lot of them are those. Yeah,
they're really I mean, they're older. They're
not right. they're not like groundbreaking or
anything. There's plenty of books kind of like
that are still being published like that. But
I just did, I was like, I have like 20 of those
or I did anyway before they closed my library
and made me so sad. But I had no idea that was
her. That was just surprising to me. Yeah. I
think there was a, I think when that library
first opened, they published like, all of or
purchased all of them for that library and then
with good reason they were good books yeah i
just had no idea that was a surprise to me anyway
for the book summary for bear's dad bear's friends
are all busy for the day and Bear feels lonely
and bored without all of them. After trying a
few things to cheer himself up, like having a
snack, he decides to do something kind for his
friends instead, and he picks them all flowers,
and eventually all of his friends come home at
the end of the day, and they've all been doing
all their separate things, and they all feel
very happy to come together and just be together
at last at the end of the day. The whole bear
series is pretty great. I like this one a whole
lot too. I think I would give this one a four
out of five probably. It's got the great rhyming
scheme. I really like the cadence of all of the
bear books. They're just so lovely and calming.
Something about the way it's written, the cadence
is just beautiful. I love how it rhymes and it's
somewhat repetitive but not overly so. They're
great. And this one fits right in with the rest
of them. I especially love the illustrations
in this one, too, with all the flowers and everything.
It's exceptionally bright and vibrant, really,
really eye -catching, but not overly done. It's
not overwhelmingly, so it's really beautiful.
I really, really enjoyed it a whole lot. This
one was good. I liked that Bear was trying some
strategies to cheer himself up. I liked that
it showed that he was, like it did say that he
was sad, but then it also kind of reiterated
like different versions of sad and like why he
might be sad that he's lonely and he needs his
friends, or he's bored and he has nothing to
do. So it was kind of... It was talking about
sad but then it was also about talking about
more specific sad adjacent feelings and I really
liked that it kind of it was kind of a good way
to talk about other feelings that were associated
with a different more broad feeling if that makes
sense So I enjoyed that too and I did like that
it showed a group of friends that are clearly
good friends with each other, and it showed that
how they were, and I guess you should, you could
just, maybe I give it a five out of five. Maybe
I like this book more than I thought I did. I
liked that it did show a group of friends that
were good friends with each other, but they were
also kind of going off to do their separate things.
I think a lot of pre -K kids especially get kind
of tied into the misconception that if they're
friends with somebody they have to be with them
all the time and it is not okay for those friends
to go hang out with anybody else and it's not
okay we are best friends you can't be friends
with them that's my best friend and it was kind
of a nice change there that everybody was like
separated doing their own thing some of it's
with other you know animal characters from the
other series and it's still okay, everybody can
still come together at the end of the day and
we can still be friends at the end of the day
and we can still have our time together. We get
our independence, but we have our together time
too. And it just is a really nice balance of
the two. Yeah, it was just a great one. And this
one, it did focus more on sad and it did have
happy at the end. So it's really only two emotions,
but in... The bear series there's other books
like bear feels scared is a good one for talking
about scared I know there's a really one where
he gets really excited about something. There's
another big emotions one. I don't remember the
name of it anyway There's because this series
is so big and it's so great for pre -k like you
really could have several bare books together
in the series and just like focus on the emotion
pieces of them if you were going to do a big
emotions lesson with your class. So I liked it.
It was a good one. Maybe it's a 4 .5 out of 5
for me. Yeah, I think maybe some humor in there
and I'd make it a 5. I like it. I agree. I love
this series. And this is a good book. It is solid.
There are some that I like a little bit better.
But overall, solid book. The illustrations are
always amazing. This one was particularly bright,
which I did enjoy. And yeah, you're right. The
rhyming, the cadence, the rhythm that goes with
it is... I always find myself attracted to books
like that because I think it keeps the student's
attention more. um when there's that rhythm to
it and so um yeah i love this book it was great
yeah it was a good one and i um for this one
in particular there's i didn't know how many
amazing resources are on karma wilson's website
she has several different um sections of her
website. There's like a kids corner with which
has her like reading books that you could show
to your class and do like a an introduction to
a virtual author study if you wanted to. So you
can kind of see who wrote the book and everything.
And then there were so many I didn't specifically
write down a makerspace activity for this one
because there were like 10 different like pre
-made activities you could do with your class.
My favorite of which was there's a little template
for a bear that you could have the kids color.
If it's pre -k, you'd probably have to help them
cut it out. But then you could easily make it
into a little paper bag puppet and reenact the
story. So and that would work really for any
of the bear books, like because they all have
the same characters and everything. So that one
was my favorite. of the ones that I saw on there
for this book in particular, but there are a
lot of like really excellent resources on Karma
Wilson's website. I strongly recommend visiting
if you haven't seen it. That's cool. Yeah, I
haven't been to the website. I'm gonna have to
check it out because that sounds awesome and
I know that kids would love to have their own
little puppet to be able to play with and retell
the story and stuff. That would be really engaging
for the students, so that would be cool. That
one was super cool. Yeah and you could also with
this book in particular because Bear, the thing
that really cheered at Bear was since he was
missing his friends and he was lonely, the thing
that made him feel happy again was doing something
kind for his friends so he would have something
to give them at the end of the day. You could
also for a makerspace activity have the kids
draw some kind of a picture or something for
their friends or do something kind for each other.
to kind of build their friendships a little bit
too. But if we were going to use something from
the website, you could also make that puppet,
which I really like. I might do that later this
year. I don't know. We'll see how ambitious I'm
feeling. That would be fun. And I think the kids,
like I said, I think the kids would really enjoy
it. And they would too. Like being able to retell
a story and like having that puppet to help them
do it builds a lot of other skills that are important.
So that's cool. It does. Yes. Very cool. Yeah.
Well, thank all of you for joining us today on
this episode of Librarians of Littles. We hope
you found some fresh ideas for inspiring young
readers. Please be sure to subscribe and connect
with us on social media. Happy reading. Thank
you for listening to this episode of Librarians
of Littles. We hope that you've enjoyed it. Check
back each Wednesday for a new episode. Librarians
of Littles is a podcast produced and hosted by
Patrick Adams and Caroline Legere. Editor, Patrick
Adams. Our theme song is performed by JD Adams.
You can follow us on Instagram at Librarians
of Littles. You can follow us on BlueSky at littleslibrarian
.bsky .social. And you can send us your emails
at librarianoflittlespodatgmail .com.