Discover the Best Children's Books About Emotions: Helping Kids Navigate Their Feelings
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How can books about emotions help children with big feelings?
Children often experience big emotions, and books about feelings and emotions can be a valuable resource in helping them navigate these intense feelings. These books provide children with a sense of validation and help them understand their emotional reactions are a normal part of life. By seeing characters in books go through similar experiences, children can learn effective strategies for expressing and regulating their emotions.
Check out the list of books below!
As a mental health therapist that works with children, I have read a lot of children’s books about emotions. I found that most of them were not very engaging, and felt more like a non-fiction lecture than an actual story for children to enjoy.
Some of them provided some valuable information and could be helpful in building children’s emotional vocabulary, but unfortunately, children would often lose interest halfway through the book.
Many children’s books about feelings would also skip ahead to teaching calming (regulation) strategies and would skip the critical step of self-awareness. When kids are having big emotional reactions, calming strategies usually are not very effective.
Imagine suggesting to your child that is crying hysterically that they should color a picture or do a yoga pose to calm down…it’s not gonna happen.
The KEY is to use calming/regulation strategies when we first start to notice our frustration building. My mission with Feelings Detective was to create fun and engaging stories and activities that would teach children about emotions and help them be mindful of the clues their body sends them: the physiological sensations that are linked to different emotional states.
When a child becomes a feelings detective, they learn skills to improve self-awareness and build a foundation for emotional well-being. as well as self-regulation and self-control.
As a bonus, this book also offers a companion video and printable activities to help continue the fun and reinforce what children learn about feelings.
More Books about Feelings and Emotions
When Jim Panzee wakes up one morning, nothing is right. His friends notice his slump and his frown and ask him if he’s grumpy. He insists he’s not grumpy and puts on a smile, but he doesn’t feel happy inside. His well-meaning friends want him to cheer up and invite him to try all their favorite things, but this makes Jim even grumpier. Once he realizes he might just need to be grumpy for a while, he starts to feel just a little better. (4-8 years)
What do you do when sadness is at your door? Rather than ignore it or try to hide, this gentle book suggests that you treat your sadness as a guest. Find activities that your sadness might like (drawing, music, taking a walk outside). When it feels understood, sadness will leave on its own. Sadness is nothing to be afraid of if you can treat it with kindness.
Sometimes you feel just one thing, but sometimes it’s more complicated. One emotion can show up in different ways, and sometimes you feel more than one at the same time. A friendly child guides the reader through some of her mixed-up emotions and offers reassurance that whatever you’re feeling is okay. The book ends with a “Guide for Caring Adults” full of ideas for activities, discussions and strategies to support social-emotional development.
Ruby is a happy, curious child until one day she finds a Worry. At first, it’s so small she barely notices it. But the Worry keeps getting bigger and bigger until it fills Ruby’s whole life. It’s not until Ruby makes a friend who also has a Worry that she learns the best thing you can do with a Worry: she shares it. This attractive, expressive picture book serves as an excellent starting point for dealing with anxious feelings.
This simple book challenges the stereotype that “tough guys” don’t have feelings. They have bad days, feel lonely, get frustrated or sad. And it’s okay to show it. The text is short and clear, but the bold images and the range of characters expressing difficult emotions leave plenty for readers to talk about. Anyone who loves superheroes, pirates, and athletes will find a role model in this moving book.
First her sister takes her toy, then their mom sides with her sister. Then Sophie falls over her truck. This makes Sophie so angry! She explodes. She runs. She climbs her favorite tree and calms down surrounded by nature. When she is calm, she returns to her family who welcome her with open arms. Vibrant, colorful illustrations convey the power of Sophie’s emotions in this simple, highly relatable book.
Anh gets angry when his grandfather interrupts his playtime for dinner. He is sent upstairs to sit with his anger and is surprised when his anger comes to life. As he gets to know his anger, he dances and pounds the floor until he is worn out and ready to be still. He then sits and breathes until his anger gets smaller and smaller. This gorgeous book teaches readers a helpful technique to resolve anger.
Evan and his dog are best friends. They do everything together, but their favorite place is his garden. When his dog dies, nothing is the same. In his anger and heartbreak, he destroys his prize-winning garden and allows it to fill with the ugliest, thorniest weeds. While there is no list of emotions in this book, it’s a poignant, accepting look at grief and loss and all the ugly, prickly feelings that can come with it.
“Feelings are like the weather. They come and go.” A young child is upset as he walks to school with his older sister. As the clouds gather and the weather changes, the text explains how important it is to have different feelings. Just like the earth needs the rain, we need to cry sometimes to stay in balance. Different emotions can be scary or intense, like different weather events, but they always pass. And just like you might see a rainbow outside, you can find your own rainbow inside after your hard feelings pass.
Flamingo is sad. His friends, an adventurous child and a surly potato try to cheer flamingo up with their favorite things but nothing seems to work. A silly look at a serious emotion, this book hits the right points. Everyone feels sad sometimes (even potatoes), sadness won’t last forever, and sometimes it feels best to let yourself feel sad.
Sophie is happy painting her favorite tree at school until a classmate teases her for her unusual color choices. She feels ashamed and embarrassed. Thankfully, their wise teacher is there to help Sophie see that she didn’t do it “wrong” and helps the children understand each other a little better. Because hurt feelings can be especially painful and long lasting in childhood, this story teaches readers to treat each other with kindness.
Learning about feelings starts with having the right words to describe what you feel. This alphabet book features one emotion for each letter of the alphabet and a short, easy to understand explanation of each term. An adorable, diverse cast of kids and animals help illustrate each word and build a framework for emotional understanding and communication.
The Color Monster, written by Anna Llenas, is a beautiful book that helps little ones express and understand their feelings. The story follows a Color Monster who is confused and needs help sorting out his jumbled emotions. Interactive elements and vibrant illustrations help toddlers and preschoolers can learn to identify emotions and name their feelings in a safe and supportive way.
A child experiences a wide range of emotions when his grandparents come for a surprise visit. Each emotion is preceded by a number of drawings of the child with different body sensations, movements and facial expressions. The text explains what the boy is feeling during the events of the day to give the reader a complete picture of how each emotion presents itself. This book ends with a wealth of activities for the caregiver and child to continue exploring emotions.
Yaz is proud of her best drawing ever. But her friend, Debby, is getting all the attention for her drawing. Yaz is way past jealous of her friend, the kind of jealous that makes her “feel bad, think ugly, and act mean.” When Yaz takes her jealousy too far and hurts her friend, she has to face her jealousy and overcome it to make things right with her friend. The story is compelling, relatable, and sure to open up conversations about this difficult emotion.
While many children’s books about emotions address sadness, this one looks at what happens when sadness doesn’t go away. Without using the word “depression”, the text describes a child with more serious symptoms, such as wanting to sleep all day. The child goes to see a counselor who helps the child understand his sadness and gives the child ways to feel better. A helpful resource guide for caregivers ends the book with tips for spotting sadness in different ages of children, ideas for how to reduce sadness, and when to seek professional help.
“We all have big feelings, both me and you. How can we help? What can we do?” A wonderfully diverse group of children are working together to clean up a vacant lot. They feel happy and excited, then angry and sad when they can’t agree on a plan. They talk it over, apologize, and work together to overcome their obstacles. They feel hopeful, tired and frustrated as they do the hard work. And in the end, they know that whatever they feel they’re not alone.
Final Thoughts on Kids Books to Teach About Emotions
By using books to explore emotions and feelings, parents, teachers, counselors, and caregivers can provide children with valuable resources to navigate their feelings and develop emotional intelligence.
We hope you have found a variety of picture books with colorful illustrations and stories that address big emotions to help the children in your life learn how to identify, express, and manage their emotions in a healthy and constructive way.
About the Author
In addition to being a bestselling children’s book author, Dane Furfaro is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and has worked with children and families for over 10 years. He has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Concordia College and a master’s degree in Educational Psychology with a specialization in counseling from the University of Minnesota. He has been fortunate to empower many children and adults in their journeys to create better futures for themselves.
