It’s too “bumpy, too lumpy, and very jumpy.” However, Mom has a few ideas up her sleeve to get her favourite dinosaur, or rather daughter, to try something new, and Mom doesn’t even care if she still doesn’t like it. In this tale a young girl is offered some broccoli to eat and she is not having any of it. Before the day is ruined his dad is able to help him remember some tricks to cope. It’s really loud, and he really doesn’t want to be there anymore. Unfortunately the beach isn’t quite what he was expecting. In it a young boy is super excited to go to the beach-so excited that he wakes up his dad at the delightful hour of four in the morning. These stories are also a great resource for parents or anyone who is looking for some advice on how to help their child or friend cope with the situations that may bother them, because they contain suggestions and ideas from someone who has lived it.Ĭotterill’s first book is This Beach is Loud! (Dial, 2019). Cotterill created the Little Senses series so children who are on the autism spectrum-like she is-can see themselves in stories. While they don’t specifically deal with sadness, they do touch on walking with someone who is anxious or nervous. The next two books are part of author/illustrator Samantha Cotterill’s Little Senses series. What’s Up, Maloo? is illustrated in Godbout’s signature style with whimsical pastel and coloured pencil illustrations that capture Maloo’s mood and the concern of his friends as they try to help him find his ability to hop again. His friends all gather round to try and find what’s wrong and help him start hopping again. One day, instead of hopping everywhere, young Maloo starts walking around in a cloud of fog and sadness. In What’s Up, Maloo? by Geneviève Godbout (Tundra, 2020), there is nobody who hops like the young kangaroo Maloo. But when the storm is over and the sun rises, Miyakoshi adds colour to her images.

The illustrations grow even darker as the storm rages and scares the young boy. The drawings in the beginning of the book are dark charcoal images as the young boy learns that a storm may prevent his family’s beach plans. One book that captures the mood of this month’s collection is The Storm by Akiko Miyakoshi (Kids Can Press, 2016). So the stories this month focus on the beauty of letting people experience their emotions at their own pace so they can come out of their “showers” and enjoy the “flowers” in their lives. Sometimes we just want to fix their problem for them. The ability to be there and let them just feel their emotions is a skill that we don’t always recognize and we don’t always act on it.