In My Heart: A Book of Feelings (Growing Hearts)

by Jo Witek (Author) Christine Roussey (Illustrator)

In My Heart: A Book of Feelings (Growing Hearts)
Reading Level: K − 1st Grade
Series: Growing Hearts

Celebrate feelings in all their shapes and sizes in this bestselling picture book from the Growing Hearts series!

Happiness, sadness, bravery, anger, shyness . . . our hearts can feel so many feelings! Some make us feel as light as a balloon, others as heavy as an elephant. In My Heart explores a full range of emotions, describing how they feel physically, inside, with language that is lyrical but also direct to empower readers to practice articulating and identifying their own emotions.

With whimsical illustrations and an irresistible die-cut heart that extends through each spread, this gorgeously packaged and unique feelings book is sure to become a storytime favorite.

The Growing Hearts series celebrates the milestones of a toddler's emotional development, from conquering fears and expressing feelings to welcoming a new sibling. Read them all!

  • Hello in There: A Big Sister's Book of Waiting
  • In My Heart: A Book of Feelings 
  • Brave As Can Be: A Book of Courage
  • All My Treasures: A Book of Joy
  • In My Room: A Book of Creativity and Imagination
  • With My Daddy: A Book of Love and Family
  • My Little Gifts: A Book of Sharing
  • My Tree and Me: A Book of Seasons
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Publishers Weekly

Concentric heart-shaped die-cuts are the centerpiece of this elegantly designed book about emotions, first published in France. An expressive pencil-drawn child uses relatable similes and metaphors to describe her various feelings: "Some days my heart feels as heavy as an elephant. There's a dark cloud over my head, and tears fall like rain. This is when my heart is sad." A featureless gray-blue elephant sprays water on the girl from its trunk, which swoops toward her from across the spread. Elsewhere, a red cross symbolizes a broken heart in need for healing (dressed as a nurse, the girl wraps the cross with a bandage), and the girl appears as Red Riding Hood, pursued by a wolf, to demonstrate fear. Witek covers an impressive emotional range while Roussey's childlike drawings evoke each feeling with playful style. Ages 2-4. (Jan.)

Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 1--Although this picture book exploration of feelings takes a similar list-and-describe approach to that of Jamie Lee Curtis's Today I Feel Silly: And Other Moods That Make My Day (HarperCollins, 2007) and Dr. Seuss's My Many-Colored Days (Knopf, 1998), don't count that against it. The approach still works, especially when the feelings evoked have such child-friendly imagery ("My heart is yelling, hot and loud," the child narrator explains). The book pairs brief verbal explorations of emotions with evocative imagery, popping with bright colors against the effectively used white background. Throughout the representative illustrations--a bright yellow star to represent happiness, an elephant to represent sadness, a silhouette of the Big Bad Wolf to represent fear--a series of heart cutouts, ever decreasing in size, appears on the pages, until the heroine is able to find her feelings everywhere.--Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes

STARRED REVIEW
"Consider this beautifully designed French import a must-have for any storytime or one-on-one sharing regarding the somewhat sticky subject of feelings."— "Kirkus Reviews" (10/1/2014 12:00:00 AM)
Jo Witek
Jo Witek is the author of Hello in There! She is an author, journalist, and screenwriter who has published several books in France. She lives in Hérault, France. Christine Roussey is the illustrator of Hello in There! She works in advertising, as well as with newspapers, magazines, and publishers. She lives in Paris.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781419713101
Lexile Measure
450
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Harry N. Abrams
Publication date
October 14, 2014
Series
Growing Hearts
BISAC categories
JUV039050 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Emotions & Feelings
Library of Congress categories
Toy and movable books
Emotions
Emotions in children

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