THE GREAT BIG BOOK OF FEELINGS

A smorgasbord of thoughts and pictures about a variety of feelings.

“How do you feel today?” the author asks. Framed portraits, more than a dozen over one spread, show children expressing a range of feelings. “It isn’t always easy to tell.” (A statement belied by this array of evocative faces.) Following this introduction, several double-page spreads put a feeling at the top of the left-hand page and fill the rest with examples in text and illustration. (Some opposites, like shy and confident, merit a facing page each.) Design choices add impact; the letters of sad seem to droop within a cloud of blue, while happy has dancing letters in a field of yellow bordered by multicolor fringe. The other 13 feelings include such usual suspects as scared, silly and angry, as well as some not so often plumbed, such as satisfied, jealous and embarrassed. It all ends with a big illustration of a handful of children putting the finishing touches on a big mural of several children displaying their feelings. Thanks to the abundance of examples, the book is predictably hit-and-miss; should interested be identified as a feeling? Too, the text is sometimes starchy and seems aimed at an older audience than the illustrations.

Well-intentioned but only intermittently effective.