You Are Your Strong

In Dufayet’s picture book debut, kids rely on loving grown-ups to help manage difficult emotions: furious about a knocked-down tower of blocks, one child notes, “Grandpa helps me find words instead of shouts./ His Gentle becomes my Strong and Mad melts away.” But being independent also means finding “your Strong all by yourself,” whether it’s defusing an attic’s spookiness with a snappy tap dance or yelling into a pillow until a tantrum passes. Zivoin’s sculptural art viscerally captures the characters’ emotional highs and lows, while Dufayet’s adjectives-as-nouns conceit is delivered with a soothing lilt. Ages 4–8. [em](Mar.) [/em]