Rajiv’s Starry Feelings

A lyrical, gentle and beautifully told story to help children name, understand and navigate a whole range feelings.

Ravi, like all of us, experiences the full spectrum of emotions from happy, silly and excited through to impatient or angry – and he beautifully articulates how confusing feelings can be as a young child, as sometimes he’s not sure why he feels a certain way or how he will feel next! After an angry outburst, Dad supports Ravi by gazing at the constellations in the night sky and they create their own shapes associated with different memories and feelings – the shape of happiness for Ravi being an astronaut chasing the moon, silliness is playing with the dog and gentleness is a soft hug. Other emotions are then represented allowing Ravi to describe why he was angry after an unkind incident at school, and Dad shows that with time and patience he can feel and work through these challenging experiences.

The link between constellations as an ancient guide and emotions as a guide to our actions is a deep and powerful theme within the story. The themes align with the PSHE curriculum and support the teaching of emotional literacy and developing empathy. This is such a beautiful and heartfelt story, and a really unique way to think about our emotions. It is great to see such a supportive father-son relationship represented too.