The Worry Balloon
This was an unexpected gem that we randomly found at the library. The illustrations are drawn more to be realistic than dreamy, and they are drawn in a soft, light hearted way (for example the main character, the little girl, has pretty wavy hair and big brown eyes and all the buildings have soft, sort of pastel colors to them), so it makes it easier for my little one to relate to Isla, the main character.
But it’s far more than the drawings that made this one a favorite. With a story that is descriptive of Isla’s morning, the book tackles what can potentially be two big issues in a child’s life: anxiety and the first day of school. It was clearly written by someone who understands anxiety well, either through seeing it in someone-that-they-love’s life or fighting with it in their own life. The description of how it can appear in one’s mind and the tools that the book present on how to handle it are excellent. I would argue this book, though written for a child, could help an adult that struggles with anxiety just as much as a child.
At the close of the book there are a couple pages written more for the adult that describe techniques and tools that can be used in an adult’s or a child’s life to deal with anxiety and a bit of the author’s real life experiences with it - which to me demonstrates how much the author cares about little ones and the subject at hand.
Cautions: The only thing I can think of is that Isla creates, from her perspective as a child entering the first day of school, worst case scenarios in her mind. My little one the first couple times was a bit obsessed with what could go wrong that I stopped reading Isla’s little thought balloons and my little one noticed and reminded me not to skip words. So, it could put scenarios into a little one’s imagination that weren’t there originally. However, I think that if a child is anxious, especially about school, he or she will get there with or without the help of this book and that the positives of the book far outweigh that risk.
