A helpful book for children: Simon and the Big, Bad, Angry Beasts

This appears to be an excellent picture book for adults to share with the nursery school aged children in their lives. This is the story of a young boy who sometimes feels angry. Simon does not know how to manage this difficult emotion but learns to handle things better by the end of the book.

Along the way, Simon’s anger is anthropomorphized as a variety of animals that grow larger and larger. The illustrations of the animals are very expressive as you can see from the book’s cover. Each time the refrain is

“It was great, it was marvelous, it was magical to have…” an animal to express his anger.

While at first Simon seems to feel powerful and not to care about others, of course, eventually he wants to re-connect and needs help to do so. The author writes

“It was not so great, not so marvelous to always have such anger.”

Simon practices a bit of calming down mindfulness which begins to help. He reconnects with others after this.

At the end of the book, there is a detailed section for adults on ways to help the children that they guide.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this e-galley which will be helpful to both kids and adults.