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An Emotional Menagerie

Book Synopsis

Emotions are like animals: No two are quite the same. Some are quiet; some are fierce; And all are hard to tame. An Emotional Menagerie is an emotional glossary for children. A book of 26 rhyming poems, arranged alphabetically, that bring our feelings to life – Anger, Boredom, Curiosity, Dreaminess, Embarrassment, Fear, Guilt, and more. The poems transform each emotion into a different animal to provide a clear and engaging illustration of its character: how it arises; how it makes us behave and how we can learn to manage its effects. Boasting a rich vocabulary, the poems also give children a wide variety of options for describing their feelings to others. Children experience all sorts of emotions: sometimes going through several very different ones before breakfast. Yet they can struggle to put these feelings into words. An inability to understand and communicate their moods can lead to bad behaviour, deep frustration and a whole host of difficulties further down the line. Like adults, they need help to recognise and verbalise their inner state. The greater their emotional vocabulary, the more likely they are to grow into happy, healthy and fulfilled adults. Filled with wise, therapeutic advice, brought to life through musical language and beautiful illustrations, An Emotional Menagerie is an imaginative and universally appealing way of increasing emotional literacy.

Our Review Panel says...

This is a beautiful collection of poems, all themed around different emotional states. Working through the alphabet (Anger, Boredom, Curiosity and so on), each feeling is likened to an animal and starts with the line ‘If ….were an animal’, helping children to identify the words we use to describe emotional states and how the feelings might cause people to behave or react.

The bright illustrations help children to make the link between the emotions and their paired animal. Anger is compared to a lion, boredom is a limp jellyfish, obsession to an otter and zeal to busy, working ants. Children will have loads of fun creating their own comparisons. A comprehensive resource pack is also available to download from the publisher.

A lovely book to help develop emotional literacy, we recommend this as a great addition to book collections in schools and homes.

This book is available on these booklists:

An Emotional Menagerie: Resource Pack

A resource pack containing a mini scheme of work, provided by the publisher to accompany the book An Emotional Menagerie.

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