The illustrations in this book were lovely and I can imagine that the pop up version of this in a paper copy will be excellent! It’s a short story suitable for younger children around 2-5 years old that will allow for good discussion about controlling our emotions and developing strategies. I can imagine great dialogue to discuss what children can do if they are feeling upset or angry.

Thank you for sharing this and allowing me to read this book!

Thank you to Quarto and NetGalley for this eARC.

Little Faces: Be Careful, Dragon is a lovely little book introducing the anger emotion to small children. Anger was well portrayed visually through the use of fire-breathing and then smoke as he calmed down. I really liked that ways to calm down and control anger were mentioned as well.

Children will really engage with the Dragon character. The illustrations are lovely around bright, the animals all are full of expressions.

| 📖 | Little Faces: Be Careful, Dragon!

The main character in this book is a fiery little dragon who is excited to see his friends. As you follow him in the story, dragon begins to feel his temper flare at his cheeky friends, but as you turn the pages, dragon is encouraged to calm himself with breathing techniques, which you can do along with him, making him calm again.

This lovely little story promotes children’s emotional literacy, it recognises some unwanted emotions and gives the reader an example of how to calm these, using techniques that the children can practice and use themselves. I think children ages 0-3 years would enjoy this story, it is short and uncomplicated, making it easy for the younger audience to understand. Preschool aged children could still enjoy it, particularly to look through and follow, but I feel it suits and benefits the younger early years aged children more. It has beautiful, fun illustrations that are easy to identify on each page. They clearly show the different emotions the book is focussing on. Children of toddler age (2-3 years) would find it easy to return to the book independently and be able to recall the story with ease.

Addressing and managing emotions is an important part of early years development, this book introduces children to these in a fun, interactive way. I think the children at my setting would enjoy this, I work in our toddler room and they very much enjoy books, not only read to them but to look through leisurely themselves.

One niggle I have as an educator is I think a counting opportunity has been missed. As the dragon is breathing in and out to calm down, it could have been added in here. It’s absence doesn’t affect the quality of the book or story though, it’s just a personal niggle I had.

| I received an Advanced Copy of this book to read and review. Thank you NetGalley and to the publishers for allowing me this opportunity |

A lovely magical board book with colourful vibrant illustrations.

In this board book dragon is looking for his friends. He has to keep calm when monkey is cheeky but he takes some deep breaths! After calming down dragon lights a fire so he can enjoy toasting marshmallows with his friends.

This book could help to prompt some early discussions with young children about how to control their emotions when they feel cross. It also has some clever interactive features which are not possible to see on this ecopy. This is a lovely little book which would make a perfect gift for a young child.

Thank you NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group for this eARC.

Little Faces: Be Careful, Dragon by Carly Madden is a short but sweet tale about controlling emotions. The illustrations about colourful and pretty.

This book is a really cute cut out toddler book about a dragon who had friends coming to visit. Would also be great to support some early reading. It does begin to talk about emotions and give the idea to breathe in and out when angry. But as far as the story goes it could do with a bit more development, it’s not clear whether it’s a book for a child to read and what stage of reading or to be read to a child. If to be read to a child I think it could have a little bit more added to the story, if for a child to read it mixes a lot of different phonics sounds so would need to know what age is aimed at. In general a cute book that allows children to start thinking about emotional literacy and great for children to learn how to calm themselves down.

My six year old enjoyed this! Lovely illustrations and a sweet story. The characters were great, especially the dragon. The interactive features on the board book look engaging too and I like it supports emotional intelligence as well.

Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.

Short and sweet story who is taught by an unicorn how to do yoga to calm themselves, because if they get upset they spew fire.

It's a nice way to introduce self awareness to a toddler, with cute, colourful pictures and without feeling as if you're being taught a lesson. Also, you can never have enough dragons in your life, and it's great to have more stories than those in which the princes needs to be saved from vile creatures that happen to be dragons.

Would recommend.
The arc was provided by the publisher.

This is a cute book. I can imagine how it would be fun to play with the hardback copy. The illustrations are cute and I like the colour palette.