4/15/2023 0 Comments I am brave meaningI feel this should be included with the actual book! It just makes so much more sense – a few back pages added to each book and this vital information wouldn’t be missing for parents like me who dive right in expecting the story to do all the work. It turns out the Teacher’s Guide is marvellous – it brings all the context together from building emotional literacy through printable emotion cards on the CD Rom, tips and tools to talk about fear and worries, role-plays, managing anxiety attacks and externalisation techniques. I turned to the Teacher’s Guide looking for an explanation. The Mental Health Foundation had given me the complete set of five books and the Teacher’s Guide to review. But I’m not surprised one of the books worried my 8-year-old. Perhaps I’m just out of touch or too careful in my approach to some of these big topics. Sometimes there is an identifiable strategy to help, sometimes this isn’t so apparent. There’s no gentle lead-in, no real warning of the content and how it plays out. death or in the previous book fear, is developed quickly in these stories. I mean, I get it, this stuff is real for some kids. I then sought to read, by myself, The Grand Wolf… who dies. She didn’t want to finish the book and that evening there was a bit of damage control to be done around night-time fear. My daughter’s questions began – her confusion over the monster because this monster is addressed in the story as if it actually exists. But the story became dark, as did the pictures. I began to read The Wolf and the Shadow Monster and my 8-year-old was captivated – the pictures are beautiful and the story has a great rhythm. I knew broadly they focussed on the development of children’s emotional literacy, which I’m all in favour of, but that was all I knew. I have another confession: I didn’t do any preliminary reading about the books. I have a confession to make: Whenever I’m asked to review children’s books, one of the first things I do is try them out on my children. These are a series of illustrated children's picture books, aimed at 4-7-year-olds, designed to help children deal with confidence issues, change, loss and grief, managing anxiety and fears, bullying and worries.
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