Feelings Are Wild

A simple counting narrative notes how emotions can change over the course of a day in this sweetly rendered work. As the pages open, “One koala feels grumpy./ His nap time was too short” attends an illustration of a blanket-toting toddler kicking a Lego tower while a worried adult looks on. A page later, “Two bunnies feel nervous./ What if they get caught?” accompanies an image of two hungry culprits filching cookies. Feelings of restlessness, frustration, sadness, shame, shyness, worry, and fear follow before Williams reverses direction “to count back down/ and check in on our friends.” The bunnies now “feel relieved. They only got a warning,” and the koala is now “safe and warm,/ snuggled up and yawning.” Scott’s huggable animals are rendered in a soft watercolor style with bold background splatters. One group of animals—10 excited quokkas—curiously doesn’t appear in the countdown section, but the twining of intellectual and emotional layers successfully models more than one kind of learning. Ages 3–5. (May)