A little emotional by Christopher Eliopoulos

Cartoon emotions, in Eliopoulos' recognizable style, fill the endpages, preparing readers for the emotional journey that awaits them. Followed by a giant, glowing yellow ballon character of happiness, the narrator plays with his favorite toy, Funn Supernova. But when he wakes up to find Funn gone, he gets A LITTLE EMOTIONAL.

Worry, fear, and then anger arrive, and when he discovers his toy is broken Anger gets truly monstrous! Then he sees his sister playing happily with her toy and Jealousy joins Anger to spit out some nasty words and accusations. But when the real culprit confesses, how will he deal with the Guilt and Embarrassment? Fortunately, a little Kindness makes everything better.

Kids will love the cartoon art and the personification of emotions will be especially familiar to fans of popular movies like Inside Out. My cynical adult side would like to point out that it's much more likely his little sister DID break his toy playing with it and wonders how he would react in that situation? I'm also skeptical that he'd be content with sharing a stuffed rabbit with her after the loss of his action figure. However, it makes a nice object lesson for kids dealing with emotions and for adults trying to teach them ways to calm down and handle things with words and not feelings, especially when feelings are overpowering.

Verdict: Not a first purchase, but if you are looking for more books about emotions and have a lot of fans of Eliopoulos' art style, this will be popular in your library.

ISBN: 9780593616611; Published May 2023 by Rocky Pond Books; Review copy provided by publisher; Donated to the library