Children will take comfort from Cornelia Maude Spelman's latest addition to her The Way I Feel series. Readers will recognize similar experiences in their own lives as this little guinea pig describes feeling sad when someone is cross or when something bad happens. Eventually our heroine realizes that feeing sad doesn't last forever.
[photo by Matthew Kaplan}
Most of us didn't learn, as children, how to take care of our emotions. Yet this is a crucial part of our learning for life. My books aim to help children (and their parents and caregivers) see that all emotions are important, universal, and can be managed successfully. "When I feel____, I know what to do!"
My children's books also seek to help children who are facing difficult situations such as divorce. It can be comforting to see that one is not alone, and that feelings can be shared. And I try to help children learn that their bodies belong to them, which helps to protect them from sexual abuse.
In December, 2010, my memoir, MISSING, was published, and it, too, is about emotion. My mother (that's her picture, at sixteen, on the cover, and her diary entry) was not helped with her childhood grief. I wish that she, as a child, had had a book that might have helped her. MISSING is about mothers and daughters, and family legacies, and all the ways that people, love, and opportunities for healing are missed--but also about how love and healing do happen.
