Review of Mr. Feelings' Birthday Party
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Annelore Trujillo
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Review of Mr. Feelings' Birthday Party
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Mr. Feelings' Birthday Party" by Norhan Refai.]
Mr. Feelings’ Birthday Party by Norhan Refai is a children’s picture book about emotions. It is almost Mr. Feelings’ birthday. He is having a party on Saturday, and he wants all of his friends to come. Each of his friends portrays a different emotion. He goes to their houses to give them their invitations. He goes to Love’s house, Happy’s house, and more. This initially goes well with the positive, uplifting emotions. Then it’s time to visit the houses of some of the more challenging emotions. How will all of the emotions react to the birthday party? Will they all show up? You’ll have to read this book to find out.
This book has some positive aspects. The idea behind this story is cute. I love that Mr. Feelings wants to invite all of his friends to the party. It covers a good range of emotions. They each have attitudes and colors to match their emotions. For example, Love loves everything. She loves parties and cakes and birthdays. Her color is pink, which is well-portrayed in the illustrations. These pictures are simple, but they match the story well. I also like that the introduction introduces the idea that emotions are natural and that it’s okay to have them.
Unfortunately, I think the promise of emotional acceptance in the introduction falls short in the rest of the book. Despite being about emotions, Mr. Feelings’ emotions aren’t discussed. The book promises to show his inner color as he goes through the story and hints that this might be important. I assumed this meant the color would match his feelings. However, this doesn’t seem to coincide with his experiences. The interactions with each emotion are also superficial and stereotypical. The book never talks about why any of the emotions feel the way they do. The conversations just consist of the positive emotions saying how lovely things are and the negative emotions saying how awful they are.
Another downfall is that the book consists of Mr. Feelings trying to change the mind of every single negative emotion. I think this teaches kids that you have to try to change the way you feel, which isn’t true. This also goes against the statement in the introduction that it’s okay to feel your emotions. The editing could also use some improvement. There are several errors that make parts of the story confusing and take away from the overall enjoyment of the book.
I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. I was disappointed by the lack of depth, the lack of discussion surrounding Mr. Feelings’ emotions, and the poor editing. I took off one star for the editing and one for the content issues. I think it could still be a good book for parents to use when discussing emotions. It would be good to work on identifying emotions with younger children. If parents want a deeper discussion than that, they will have to supplement the book with their own thoughts and ideas. As written, I would recommend this book to the parents of preschool and kindergarten children to begin broaching the concepts of emotions.
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Mr. Feelings' Birthday Party
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Mr. Feelings’ Birthday Party by Norhan Refai is a children’s picture book about emotions. It is almost Mr. Feelings’ birthday. He is having a party on Saturday, and he wants all of his friends to come. Each of his friends portrays a different emotion. He goes to their houses to give them their invitations. He goes to Love’s house, Happy’s house, and more. This initially goes well with the positive, uplifting emotions. Then it’s time to visit the houses of some of the more challenging emotions. How will all of the emotions react to the birthday party? Will they all show up? You’ll have to read this book to find out.
This book has some positive aspects. The idea behind this story is cute. I love that Mr. Feelings wants to invite all of his friends to the party. It covers a good range of emotions. They each have attitudes and colors to match their emotions. For example, Love loves everything. She loves parties and cakes and birthdays. Her color is pink, which is well-portrayed in the illustrations. These pictures are simple, but they match the story well. I also like that the introduction introduces the idea that emotions are natural and that it’s okay to have them.
Unfortunately, I think the promise of emotional acceptance in the introduction falls short in the rest of the book. Despite being about emotions, Mr. Feelings’ emotions aren’t discussed. The book promises to show his inner color as he goes through the story and hints that this might be important. I assumed this meant the color would match his feelings. However, this doesn’t seem to coincide with his experiences. The interactions with each emotion are also superficial and stereotypical. The book never talks about why any of the emotions feel the way they do. The conversations just consist of the positive emotions saying how lovely things are and the negative emotions saying how awful they are.
Another downfall is that the book consists of Mr. Feelings trying to change the mind of every single negative emotion. I think this teaches kids that you have to try to change the way you feel, which isn’t true. This also goes against the statement in the introduction that it’s okay to feel your emotions. The editing could also use some improvement. There are several errors that make parts of the story confusing and take away from the overall enjoyment of the book.
I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. I was disappointed by the lack of depth, the lack of discussion surrounding Mr. Feelings’ emotions, and the poor editing. I took off one star for the editing and one for the content issues. I think it could still be a good book for parents to use when discussing emotions. It would be good to work on identifying emotions with younger children. If parents want a deeper discussion than that, they will have to supplement the book with their own thoughts and ideas. As written, I would recommend this book to the parents of preschool and kindergarten children to begin broaching the concepts of emotions.
******
Mr. Feelings' Birthday Party
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: My School Sports by Ersen Buyuknisan
