Everyone is Included at the Animal Party are stories created for little ones to learn socioemotional skills while expanding their big imaginations. In The Little Boy Learns about Feelings, Inclusion, & Coping, a little boy gets some help from a magical frog to face typical playground challenges such as using our words, identifying emotions, using empathy and coping skills, practicing inclusion, and celebrating diversity and authenticity. Each page has recommended reflective questions to engage young readers to connect with the character's emotions and challenges. The book is designed to encourage children to problem solve and elaborate on their feelings and coping skills with or without the guidance of a supportive adult.
As a special education teacher for students with autism, I’m always looking for new resources that promote inclusivity as well as social emotional development. This book does a fantastic job of utilizing talking points to promote acceptance of all feelings and normalizing discussions surrounding them as well as opportunities for role playing. On a personal note, I’ve also read this to my own children and will continue to share with other professionals and parents as a resource.
My kids are 7, 5, and 4. My 7 year old especially struggles with making friends and joining in. This book was a great story with the most amazing talking points throughout. My kids could relate to what was going on in the story and we had really great conversations about times we have felt left out and how we handled it. I would highly recommend this to anyone who has kids who are shy but also those with confident kids can learn how they can better include others! So glad I found a book like this, I have never found anything like it!
This book is amazing! The story is imaginative and creative while also articulating how important it is to understand how we feel. I bought a copy for all of the little ones in my life. How lucky are we to have the opportunity to teach our children the value in being able to recognize and verbalize our emotions. The world will be a better place the more children are able to learn these basic but fundamental lessons. The future is bright.
Love this for my kids and LOVE the dialogue it has started about inclusion and empathy with a fun story. Thanks for writing this.
