Picture Books for Kids with BIG (Angry) Feelings {Roaming Rosie Book Reviews}

Posted in books & book reviews by Rosemary Lynn

Kids may be little, but they have very big emotions.

Sometimes those emotions get SO big they explode into anger. Sometimes they just sizzle at grumpiness. Either way, it helps if they have the words to discuss their feelings, and actionable suggestions for helping them find their way out of a bad mood.

These are some of my favorite picture books on the subject. I love picture books for these kinds of discussions, because they give kids a great visual of the emotions they may be feeling.

Plus, these books are also just great stories – no need to read them ONLY when feeling upset. Sure, they can help kids work through big emotions, but they are also entertaining reads.

Grumpy Monkey by Suzanne Lang and Max Lang; Random House, 2018

Grumpy Monkey is such a favorite – a classic from the time it was released. This charming story follows Jim Panzee who wakes up in a grumpy mood. He insists that he’s not grumpy but the other animals can see that he clearly is quite grumpy. They offer all kinds of suggestions to cheer him up – rolling like zebras or stomping like elephants – but Jim doesn’t want to do any of these things. In the end, Jim realizes he is indeed grumpy, and he also finds the best solution: quiet acceptance from his friend Norman. We all have different ways of dealing with our moods, after all, and this is one of my favorite stories for discussing emotions with young ones.

Get Grumpy Monkey by Suzanne Lang and Max Lang at your local library, or at AMAZON or INDIEBOUND.

The Bad Mood and the Stick by Lemony Snicket and Matthew Forsythe; Little, Brown and Company, 2017

I like to describe The Bad Mood and the Stick as existential. Not sure that’s the exact correct term, but what we’re doing here is following around a stick and a bad mood, the latter of which is portrayed as a cloud. The stick seems to keep finding itself moving from place to place while the bad mood is transferred to one person after another until it circles the whole world. This is one of those great stories that opens up conversations about what emotions are without being didactic at all. There is no lesson here – no heavy-handed tale of morality. It’s just a fun story that happens to be about a stick, and a bad mood.

Get The Bad Mood and the Stick by Lemony Snicket and Matthew Forsythe at your local library, or at AMAZON or INDIEBOUND.

The Unbudgeable Curmudgeon by Matthew Burgess and Fiona Woodcock; Alfred A. Knopf, 2019

The Unbudgeable Curmudgeon is kind of like a How-To book. It asks, “how do you budge an unbudgeable curmudgeon?” and gives some solutions. Don’t worry – it also defines “curmudgeon” on the first page, so you won’t have to come up with your own explanation for what will probably be a new vocabulary word for your kid. This story is about two siblings who are grumpy in turns. It’s fun to see the kids transform into curmudgeons and back again. It gives some workable examples for how to feel better, like singing songs, so it offers a great way to involve the kiddos by asking things like, “how would you budge the curmudgeon?”

Get The Unbudgeable Curmudgeon by Matthew Burgess and Fiona Woodcock at your local library, or at AMAZON or INDIEBOUND.

Allie All Along by Sarah Lynne Reul; ‎ Union Square Kids, 2018

Allie All Along has similarieties to The Unbudgeable Curmudgeon, but with a more gradual transformation. Here, Allie is the sister of the main character and Allie becomes ANGRY. Her anger turns her into a giant red monster. As her brother helps her calm down, she gets smaller and goes through a rainbow of colors – warm to cool – until she’s back to herself again.

Get Allie All Along by Sarah Lynne Reul at your local library, or at AMAZON or INDIEBOUND.

Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard; Scholastic Press 2016

Grumpy Bird is another classic. Grumpy Bird is grumpy and stomps off through the forest. All the animals, one by one, want to know what he’s up to. He grumpily informs them, and to his surprise, they want to join in! Once Bird realizes he’s being copied, he tries out some new moves. Suddenly he realizes he’s having fun, and forgets all about being grumpy.

Get Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard at your local library, or at AMAZON or INDIEBOUND.

Feeling Angry (Everyday Feelings) by Katie Douglass and Mike Gordon; Free Spirit Publishing, 2017

One last book I want to mention is Feeling Angry. This is a book in a series of books about emotions and it leans more towards non-fiction than the other stories that I’ve listed. In fact, it’s probably shelved in the non-fiction section of your library. This is the type of book that isn’t meant to be a bedtime story or the sort you read over and over again for entertainment. But it’s a well-written, straightforward approach to discussing feeling angry and the different ways in which you might defuse that anger. It does have an underlying story in which the kid gives advice to everyone around him – until suddenly he needs some reminders himself.

Get Feeling Angry by Katie Douglass and Mike Gordon at your local library, or at AMAZON or INDIEBOUND.

I’d love to hear about your favorite books on discussing big emotions with kids – please share in the comments!

Happy Reading!

21Aug2022

Mystery Map & Backyard Treasure Hunt

Posted in activities for kids, books & book reviews by Rosemary Lynn

Our Mystery Map and Backyard Treasure Hunt was so much fun!

This is a great outdoor activity, and while it’s still quite hot outside as I write this, fall is coming. (Please hurry!!)

When I did this with my girls, I actually drew the map. I love maps, and I love floor plans, so for me it was astounding fun to create a layout of the backyard. Another option, however, is letting your kids make the map. Or make it a collaborate effort. It really depend on the ages of your children.

My main goal here, however, was the treasure hunt, as opposed to the map making. The latter, of course, is a great activity too, but instead of making the map, I had my kids navigate the one I made. With the goal of finding treasure!

I got some new small toys (in this case, Tsum Tsums mini plush) and hid them inside some large-sized Easter eggs. Then I hid the eggs outside, handed the kids the map, and let them loose.

The instructions I had given them were to search the yard and make marks on the map to assist in the search.

Essentially, their mission was to mark off on the map each time they found an egg, and to cross off sections they searched which did not contain eggs.

As you can see below, I included everything from a bird bath to the tree swing on my map, but it doesn’t have to be that detailed. Unless you’re obsessive like me – then go all out!

My kids decided to use the two colors of markers for different purposes. They chose purple to circle the places where they found eggs, and pink to cross off the places they looked that were egg-less. I’d let them know there were four eggs, so they also knew when to stop.

Then they got to open their treasure eggs. So the hunt was fun, the treasure was exciting, and I was happy because they were outside in the fresh air. Wins all around.

No backyard? No worries! This can also be done inside (drawing couches and tables instead of trees), or you can head to your local park. If you’re planning a treasure hunt in a public place, however, you may want to hide vouchers of a sort that they can trade in for eggs, so that your kid can still find something but you don’t have to worry about someone else walking off with the treasure.

And, of course, y’all know I’m gonna talk about books if I get the change, right??

This was a project we did awhile ago (what can I say – it’s been a weird few years *shrugs*), but I got excited when I found a recent picture book that goes along with nicely with this type of activity.

The Boy Who Loved Maps by Kari Allen and G. Brian Karas is such a fun exploration of map making! It follows two children through the process of making a map of their neighborhood – and also exploring different places around the neighborhood – so if you’re already making a map of your backyard like we did here, this book makes a great visual for kids.

It has some educational backmatter to help you describe map making to kids, and it can give them ideas for drawing their own. Plus, it’s also an adorable story! The language used to describe their environment is nothing short of magical. I definitely recommend reading it.

You can get it at your local library or here:

The Boy Who Loved Maps on Amazon

The Boy Who Loved Maps on IndieBound

I’d love to hear about any similar activities that your family has done!

Happy Treasure Hunting!

19Apr2015

Book Review: Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature’s Most Memorable Meals by Dinah Fried

Posted in books & book reviews by Rosemary Lynn

I recently picked up Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature’s Most Memorable Meals by Dinah Fried with the expectation that I’d soon be trying out some new recipes.

I was mistaken.

So my initial reaction to this book was one of disappointment.

But I was still intrigued, as I usually am with anything related to either novels or food {and this had both!} so I sat down and began to read it from the beginning.

I found the author’s description of her process to be quite entertaining, and I think I would have enjoyed hearing more about her story. After all, she chose some books with which I was completely unfamiliar and some times she chose foods that I wasn’t able to identify or match to the descriptions. So even though I enjoyed the tidbits of facts on each page, I would have liked a meatier {hehe} explanation.

There were a wide variety of books documented here, from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and The Secret Garden, pictured above, to others like Moby Dick, Lolita, and American Psycho. I liked finding so many different titles, but there are so many, many more – endless, really – options for inclusion in a book like this, that I kind of found it too short.

I want to make sure that I stress that I really did like this book. But I also want to stress that it’s a coffee table book, not a cookbook. Gazing at the creamy chowder and crusty bread in the rustic setting of the author/photographer’s imagining of Moby Dick left me craving a warm soup to combat the dreary, rainy weather I could hear in my memory.

Which also made me realize that the book had accomplished its goals. The author tells us that she hopes her work will “transport [us] back into fictional worlds,” and for the books we haven’t read, that her photographs are there to “offer a little taste of the stories.”

So not a cookbook. An art book. A photography book. A recipe book, but not recipes of food. Recipes of the subconscious lingerings that great books leave behind in us.

And once I understood the purpose of the book, I was able to devour it {snicker} with relish {I could do this all day…} and find amusement in the playfulness of the props and the colorful culinary interpretations.

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15Apr2015

Book Review: The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

Posted in books & book reviews by Rosemary Lynn

The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani, is a fast-paced fairy tale {somewhat fractured} about two girls searching for their Happily Ever Afters.

But their Happily Ever Afters and their journeys to find themselves are not at all what either girl could ever have imagined.

And it’s fun to read.

It’s a middle-grade novel, written for ages 8 to 12, with the paperback at 544 pages long.

The story begins with two very different girls: Sophie, a gorgeous wannabe princess who spends her days preening and dreaming of princes, and Agatha, a quiet loner who lives in a graveyard and has a cat named Reaper who leaves beheaded birds in her pockets.

Sophie and Agatha only entered a relationship because Sophie was trying to demonstrate how “Good” and charitable she was by befriending the homely outcast dubbed a witch by the townspeople. This relationship, however, grew into a real {albeit somewhat unbalanced} friendship before the story even starts.

Their story starts for us as they are kidnapped by the elusive School Master and dropped into the School for Good and Evil. Unexpectedly, however, Agatha is dropped into the School for Good and Sophie into the School for Evil. Both girls are certain a mistake has been made.

As the book progresses, we see Agatha continually and fiercely trying to protect and help her friend, as Sophie grows more and more selfish and angry. And even though the characters keep showing us their true natures and showing the audience that maybe, just maybe, they’re in the correct schools after all, the book isn’t that cut and dry.

In between colorful school lessons of witches learning the correct way to cook children and princesses learning how to speak to squirrels, and in between competitions where princes try to discern which magical pumpkin is actually a princess, the children face some very dangerous and quite scary situations. Which is – actually – very in keeping with the style of fairy tales.

But the point to all of these lessons and competitions and circuses and balls is that we learn that even the baddest of the Bad students have their good points, and even the Good students are perfectly capable of evil.

I rather enjoyed the book, and I was very happy with the way it ended. Now, when I started reading it, I didn’t even know it was part of a series, but I was relieved to find that out, because when the book ended, I did want to know more of their story, even though it still would have functioned as a stand alone novel.

And it’s all done in a very entertaining way through a story that moves along at a good pace: fast enough to keep kids and young adults entertained, but not so quickly that things get overwhelming or confused. The language is intelligent, the imagery is vivid, and the story was creative. I laughed … I cried … and I totally think everyone who is even remotely and mildly interested in fantasy and fairy tales should read it. There isn’t anything in there that’s inappropriate for young kids, but I feel that adults will rather enjoy the tongue-in-cheek fairy tale references. I absolutely plan to read the sequels.

You can see a preview of The School for Good and Evil on Amazon.

Happy Reading!

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18Mar2015

Book Review: 50 Easter Things to Make and Do

Posted in activities for kids, books & book reviews, holidays, usborne by Rosemary Lynn

50 Easter Things to Make and Do

This craft book, 50 Easter Things to Make and Do, is a really great thing to have on hand in springtime.

The title may say “Easter” and it’s certainly focused on Easter-type things, but it’s got a lot of wonderful craft ideas that are generally themed around the season of spring.

And while the crafts themselves are super cute, there are other things about the book that I also absolutely LOVE.

For example, it has the spiral binding, so it lays flat – which is handy when you’re looking from it to your project and back again.

Plus, the projects themselves have step-by-step instructions, which is great for showing children the progression of the craft from start to finish.

It’s also a great size to fit inside an Easter basket – which is how my daughter will be receiving it this year. And since, like I mentioned, many of the projects are great to do all throughout spring and not just for Easter, we’ll be working on some of these adorable crafts all through the season.

You can get a better look at the book in my video review:

The book is out of print on my Usborne Books & More site, but you can still find used copies on Amazon.

Happy Crafting!

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16Mar2015

Easy {No Bake} Book Shaped Cookies

Posted in books & book reviews, food & flavor & recipes, parties, usborne by Rosemary Lynn

Easy {No Bake} Book Shaped Cookies at RoamingRosie.com

These book-shaped cookies are soooooo cute!

And I’m a total sucker for cute food.

Anyway, I made these for a book party I was throwing. You know, because cookies that looked like books seemed like an appropriate snack for a party celebrating books. :)

The best part?

{Have you read my blog? Do ya know what I’m gonna say next??}

They were easy!

Cute + easy + yummy = AWEsome!

The idea came from Catholic Cuisine when I found a picture of their Bible cookies on Pinterest. I just made mine a little differently.

Here are the step-by-step pictures:

Easy {No Bake} Book Shaped Cookies at RoamingRosie.com

As you can see from the above picture, I just cut off one end of some Newton cookies and – just like that – the cookies already looked like little novels.

I used the Apple Cinnamon Newtons and Blueberry Newtons, but any flavor will work.

To amplify the effect, I added some icing in a pattern that would make them look a little bit more like fancy hardcover books: a line down the front to indicate where the spine would start, 4 little lines across the spine in two groups, and a rectangle over the front cover.

And then, for fun, I wrote some words on some of them. You don’t really need to do that, but I really got into it.

Easy {No Bake} Book Shaped Cookies at RoamingRosie.com

To make the icing, all you really need to do is mix a little water or milk into some confectionery sugar, but I actually used the same recipe that I use for my Soft Sugar Cookies and Mini Soft Iced Gingerbread Cookies.

Then you just let the cookies sit for a couple of minutes to let the icing harden, before storing them in a closed container or displaying them on a tray to serve.

They’ll keep for a few days, so you can make them ahead of time.

Easy {No Bake} Book Shaped Cookies at RoamingRosie.com

And they’re totally perfect to enjoy with a cup of warm tea or coffee and a good {you know} book.

To find out more about the amazing books at our party, visit BooksWithRosie.com!

Enjoy!

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6Mar2015

Bored? Not Even Close.

Posted in musings by Rosemary Lynn

Am I bored?

Not even close.

In fact, I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had the chance {as you may have noticed} to update my blog in a while.

But this Boredom Buster graphic rolled across my Facebook feed, and when I thought about how Spring Break is coming up, I was also reminded of everything I’ve got going on right now and everything that need to get done.

For example, my girls are having a birthday party soon. In a week, in fact. A. WEEK.

So I’ve been busy putting together goody bags, making mermaid tails, painting sharks, organizing decorations… stuff like that. {All of which, of course, will soon be featured here.}

And I’ve also started a new job. Part-time, but hey, that’s still that many more hours out of the house every week. Plus, I’m still trying to get everything organized to do my taxes. I’ve been selling books. And I’ve been writing again, too. The writing part is awesome, {really, really awesome}, but it tends to be a bit consuming, too.

Thus: not a ton of blog posts.

Well, no.

Not a ton of finished and published blog posts. A whole bunch of partially finished ones, though. Just sitting there waiting for me….

Anywho, my apologies for those of you that noticed my absence. Hope you didn’t miss me too much. :)

Oh – and if you DO need some boredom busters, you can find the books pictured above at BooksWithRosie.com.

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24Feb2015

Book Review: Easter Bunny Lift a Flap Book

Posted in books & book reviews, holidays, usborne by Rosemary Lynn

Easter Bunny Lift-a-Flap Board Book

This adorable Easter Bunny Flap Book is not only fun for kids – it’s the perfect size to fit into an Easter basket, too!

I like to give my kids new books for every holiday, and this year, this flap book is going into my daughter’s basket.

It’s technically a baby book, but I’m giving it to my 2 (almost 3) year old, and I know my 4 (almost 5) year old will enjoy flipping through it, too, helping her sister find where the Easter bunny hid all the eggs!

Aside from the flaps that you have to lift to find the eggs, kids will also enjoy the peek-through holes in the pages that give you a hint at who we’re going to visit on the next page.

You can watch me demonstrate more about this charming book in my video review:

The Easter Bunny Lift-a-Flap Board Book isn’t available any more on my Usborne Books site, but you can still find some used copies on Amazon.

Happy Easter and Happy Reading!!

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18Feb2015

Book Review: Flippy Floppy Lift a Flap Jungle Animals

Posted in books & book reviews, usborne by Rosemary Lynn

Flippy Floppy Jungle Animal Board Book

This Flippy Floppy Jungle Book is one of my kid’s newest fascinations. They’ve been having a lot of fun with it.

It’s a great lift-the-flap board book from Usborne/Kane Miller that offers a lot of interaction for kids.

The purpose of the book is to lift four flaps in order to slowly reveal a hidden animal. As you go, the animal you’re looking for appears as bits and pieces of other animals. For example, the tail of the tiger is also the beak of a toucan and the body of a snake.

There are cut-outs to look through and a little bird to find on all of the pages. The last page challenges kids to find all the animals again, and it’s sturdy enough for little hands to get excited about with thick pages and rounded corners.

I go into some more detail in my video review, where you can also see how it works:

And, yes… I’m aware that I have a strange expression on my face in the video thumbnail. TRUST me – it was the best one!

I’m also aware that I keep calling it “Flippity Floppity Jungle Animals” on the video. I don’t know why, but “Flippy Floppy” seems to be difficult for me to say…

Anyway, to see the book, or add it to your online wishlist, click:

Flippy Floppy Lift-the-Flap Jungle Animal Book

And if you like this book, you’ll also love:

Flippy Floppy Lift-the-Flap Farm Animals

Flippy Floppy Lift-the-Flap Ocean Animals

Happy Reading!

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14Feb2015

Spreading a Love of Reading This Valentine’s Day

Posted in books & book reviews, holidays, usborne by Rosemary Lynn

Spread a Love of Reading This Valentine's Day!

I love Usborne Books & More, and so for Valentine’s Day, I’d like to share some of that love with you!

This company has done amazing things in my life, and since I’ve been a part of it, I’ve found my kids reading and asking me to read to them even MORE than they used to!

I’ve been able to witness kids who were unable to keep their hands off of these gorgeous books. I’ve seen kids hug them. Cling to them. I watched children just today who picked out some books from my booth at a craft fair, and barely make it to the next booth before sitting down on the grass to read and play with their new books while their mother shopped for hair bows.

Kids love these books.

And, so, to celebrate this love, I wanted to share a few books with you that are great reads for Valentine’s Day…… and all year long!

The Best Children's Books for Valentine's Day