A fun picture book about music and emotions. It links different emotions with music and is a lovely book to share with key stage 1 and start conversations about feelings.

This story is perfect for anybody struggling to control their emotions, young and old.
It’s a great reminder of how getting lost in music can help us escape the thoughts in our heads.
I can’t wait to introduce it the children I work with.

I really enjoyed this playful approach to teaching young people about their emotions. Through the idea of music, Sophy Henn describes the different ways that children might feel on a day to day basis and how that might affect their rhythm. The main message, however, of the book is that it is all of these different rhythms and emotions that make us unique and if we learn to follow our own music (as well as sometimes tuning into the music from others) then that is the best that we can be.
The illustrations perfectly match the storyline (I particularly like the parade page) and the use of colour to match emotion is clever and would be a good talking point. This story would make a great class read for reception to Year 2. It would provide ample opportunities for discussion about emotions and the music that each emotion makes them feel. This could be followed on with a music lesson to represent the different emotions through sound. It’s a fun, colourful book that I look forward to recommending to the EYFS/ KS1 team at my school.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for my proof copy.

I'll come out with the fact that I really didn't think I'd enjoy this as much as I did. It's clearly a book using musical language to describe moods, and the sort of let-you-be-YOU message so prevalent these days. And in using rhyme in the text, it's not got the strict structure I'd like, rather something more like a spoken word piece or a rap. Visually it's generally showing our slightly punky, vaguely goth, colour-meets-tutu-meets-bovver-boots girl in different dynamic situations and poses, but even that doesn't feel too limiting. No, this just worked despite none of its component parts being what I would have chosen. It's a quite ingenious way to take us through the character's mood swings, and indeed swing, as she might be happy and skippy one day or glitchy the next or shouty the one after. So she is multiple musical styles and genres, but then when we're true to ourselves, aren't we all? Damn it, even the lesson is nothing like as cloying or pat as that way of abridging it makes it sound. It's an all round success, and if my four stars plus helps it do well, I might just whistle a happy tune.

My five year old (Floss) and I were first drawn to this book due to the coruscating, vivid front cover. Floss particularly loved the floaty pink skirt juxtaposed against the chunky black boots with vibrant yellow laces of the main character. The character is gender neutral and I'm really appreciating more authors and illustrators doing this and throwing out gender stereotyping.

The Music In Me tells us about the music that is in all of us and how our mood and the circumstances of our day can change our rhythm; the musical rhythm in all of us. Sometimes our rhythm can disappear altogether, sometimes we join in with the rhythm of others. Yet there's nothing better than our own rhythm, being you.

As Floss was reading she found the changes between rhyme and prose a little challenging to get to grips with. However, she said it was like the story in the way the pattern of the writing changed just as our emotions and our rhythm alter. She also particularly enjoyed the vast use of ellipses to change the speed of the reading. It very much mirrored musical staccato. It would be a brilliant book to talk about an author's intentions with their writing and we certainly had lively discussion about why Sophy chose to write the way she did for this book.

Floss adored the images in this book and there was so much to discover and talk about on each page. One spread that she particularly enjoyed was the one of all the different faces showing a variety of emotions.

Thank you #NetGalley and #SimonAndSchusterKids for the eARC of #TheMusicInMe