As a teacher, I often have students in my class who experience big emotions. This was a great book to help students identify the various emotions such as anger, sadness, and worry. The pictures of the emotions were a great visual for young children and the book had real situations that students/children can relate to and may have even experienced big emotions about.

I liked the page with the quote "You can be the boss of your ANGER if you follow 3 rules: you cannot hurt yourself, you cannot hurt others, and you cannot hurt things." It then had alternatives ways to handle the big emotion of ANGER such as tell a squishy about it, whisper to it, and then crunch, squish, or stretch all your words into the squishy. Most teachers have a calming corner that can be used for students to take a moment. A squishy is something we can have available to students to help with their big emotions including anger.

I also liked that the teacher told the student it is ok to ask for help. The book didn't make having big emotions a bad thing or depict the student as a "bad student".

The end of the book provides parents, caregivers and educators tips that are written by a clinical counselor and registered play therapist. It also provides information on how to get a squishy like Dawson but any squishy toy or stuffed animal could work.

As a teacher, I would read this book to my class especially if I had students who were displaying big emotions that were getting in the way of their learning or other students learning. I would make an anchor chart on ways to handle big emotions and place it near the calming corner.

Thank you to Julia Cook for writing a book that deals with this important topic and is relatable and age appropriate to a range of grade and age level.

This book will be published on 27th February 2024. Thank you to the publisher for an ebook of this book. I voluntarily read it and gave an honest review.