Wonderful little book about feelings. This would have come in handy when mine was younger, but it is great now that he is older too.

This is probably one of my favorite nonfiction books this year and should be a must read for both children AND adults. I love having the parts of the brain personified and it makes it so much easier to understand our emotions/feelings. It is so informative and as someone who struggles with anxiety, I learned a lot about what is happening.

A more in depth book on feelings and emotions. This book is long for a children’s book but can be consumed in multiple sessions. I appreciate the format of this book and the way it addresses what feelings are and how they can present.

I really wanted to love it but it just feels off. I like the idea of teaching our children more science behind what’s happening but this just didn’t flow right. I’m confused at which age group this is aimed at, as it’s written with big kid words but the engagement is at a much younger level (nicknames, characters, illustrations) I have a 5 and 8 year old and it didn’t catch with either on. Reading through I stumbled a lot, it felt clunky and I questioned if I read it right. The gendering of brain parts as characters was a big miss too in my opinion. And again, those characters made it almost “out of body” instead of “the wonder inside your brain”. We need to emphasize being in tune with our body. Then out of nowhere there’s big activities with required materials in the middle to do with no warning.

The Magical Science Of Feelings By Jen Daily
Thank you to @storeypub for the gifted copy!

I love this book! It’s a great one to pair with watching Inside Out 1 and 2. It explains how your brain plays a role in your feelings and reactions to situations. It also has an engaging narrative style that encourages question and response. It asks the readers lots of relatable questions that help them connect to the topics and reflect their own experiences. I had a lot of fun reading it with my 8 and 9 year olds. Also, there are fun science experiments for each feeling. We are especially excited to try the slime experiments. If I were using this in the classroom, I’d definitely have a cross content approach that connected ELA, Science and Art. So many possibilities for a great SEL unit!

An approachable, science-based guide to increasing you and your child’s EQ. This book breaks down the physiological processes behind our big feelings in a way that is easy to understand and fun. The book is also full of hands-on activities that will help solidify the information in a memorable way. As a new parent, I really appreciate this book! Learning about emotions with my children will improve our health, relationship, and more!

This was aimed younger than I was expecting. I also think the author underestimates kids' ability to understand scientific terms. The main characters were introduced and immediately given nicknames, and only referred to by those nicknames for the rest of the book.

Limbic System = Lim
Hippocampus = Hippo
Amygdala = Amy
Neocortex = Neo

This has the unfortunate side effect of gendering them. So "Amy" overreacts and shouts and panics a lot. Even though the author splits them so half use he/him and half use she/her, Amy gets the most page time and the choice to make her female smacks of (perhaps unconscious) sexism.

It also makes it all feel very abstract. There are these characters in your brain controlling how you're feeling. If they'd just used the actual names for those parts, the repetition would have been sufficient to reinforce them and it would feel more like science than just a fun story.

There was a lot of good information in here, it was just overshadowed by the choice to abbreviate the names. My kiddo is, granted, a lot more into science than many kids probably are, but he didn't seem to get much out of it.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Storey Publishing for providing an advance copy for review.

Great book for kids to drive into the science of their feelings. The illustrations were pleasant and convenient was broken down into bite size facts with call outs. Very engaging.

I like that this book helps to make the science of emotions accessible to younger children. However, it seemed to be a bit inconsistent or disjointed as it attempted to give cute nicknames to some scientific terms and still use the "big words" for others. It was a little hard to tell what age it is geared toward. Overall, I think it can be a decent resource for teaching kids about emotions and how to manage them. Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.

“The Magical Science of Feelings” scales neuroscience back to basics with characters who represent different parts of the brain, teaching readers young and old about “who” controls what. These caricatures also show the interplay of different functions within brain. All in all, an informative and entertaining read.

This honest review was written for NetGalley in exchange for an advance reading copy from the publisher.

The book opens with what your body is telling you about what’s feeling inside and continues with an illustrative exposition of how brain deals with feelings.
Each feeling is unveiled starting with definition, symptoms, causes and solutions throughout beautiful illustrations.

In a Nutshell: A brilliant exploration of the “magical science of feelings”, highlighting some important information and action strategies to handle emotions in an easy-to-understand manner. Loved the content as well as the approach. Much recommended!

Feelings are often viewed as ‘abstract’ concepts. Kids know about common feelings, but they do not realise how these are directed within our bodies, originating from our brains but affecting our entire self. Even some adults might be surprised to discover just how much physiology is involved in our emotions.

This book seeks to bridge the gap between the abstract and the concrete. It explains, in as simple a way as possible, how various components within the brain function during various emotions. The feelings tackled by the book aren’t just common ones such as happiness or worry, but also some complex ones such as being overwhelmed.

It is impossible to not think of the movie ‘Inside Out’ while reading this book. (It is one of my favourite animated movies, so no complaints.) Just as ‘Inside Out’ highlighted the individuality of feelings, this book depicts how each feelings triggers a specific response in our mind and body.

What makes this book extra special is that it elaborates on our complex neurological system in a style that children will find easy to understand. Using four comical characters - Amy, Hippo, Neo, Lim, who represent the amygdala, the hippocampus, the neocortex, and the limbic system respectively – the book depicts the role these four play every time we experience an emotion or its reaction, such as butterflies in the tummy or reddened cheeks or tears in our eyes. I love the idea of having cartoonish characters to depict brain functionality and complex scientific terms because it’s such an easy way of making tougher concepts accessible to little ones.

The tagline of this book states: ‘Train your brain to quiet anger, soothe sadness, calm worry, share joy.’ The content succeeds in meeting this claim, offering practical strategies for each of these points. Each of the strategies is accompanied by an activity that kids can do at home. The activity involves either a simple exercise or make-at-home creations. The latter might end up getting messy and a bit wasteful, so I wasn’t a big fan of these. This is the only negative feedback I have about the book. Then again, there are many parents who encourage children towards messy crafts as well, so this feedback won’t be universally valid.

The book has some big scientific words as they can’t be avoided in such a topic, but they whole thing is so beautifully simplified that children won’t be bothered by the technical terms.

There is a special note for parents at the end of the book. I’d encourage adults to read this first, before sharing the book with children.
The illustrations complement the content perfectly. The cartoonish graphics help in making the book feel more accessible than technical. I love how the colour of the pages matched the emotions they spoke about.

All in all, this is an excellent scientific book that takes boring or complicated details about the role of our brain and nervous system in directing our emotions, and offers practical advice on how to boost positive emotions and handle negative ones.

Strongly recommended. The official target age is 5 to 8 years, but I think this would also work wonderfully for tweens. It would be a great fit in homes, classroom libraries as well as counselling centres.

4.75 stars.

My thanks to Storey Publishing and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Magical Science of Feelings”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

This book should be your number one gift to parents, teachers and professionals, new and seasoned. Absolutely love how the chemistry of science is explained and made tangible and more comprehensible with little scientific activities and potions for the children. Added to my list of favorites-gift-list. Imagine a world where children already became conciously aware of their emotions, imagine humanity evolving like this.

We really enjoyed the presentation of this book. Through the use of characters (like in Inside Out), there is a conductor of 'feelings' who organises the messenger hormones to create our emotions and then explains what happens in our heads when we feel happy, sad, mad, worried or overwhelmed and then suggests activities to do when we experience each one.

It allows grown ups to help little ones to navigate their emotions and their emotional response to the emotions of others.

Thank you to NetGalley and Storey Publishing for sending this eBook for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

Thoughts:
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. This is such a good little book for kids exploring their feelings and learning how to manage them. I liked the cute names for the brain's messengers and child friendly explanations for them and the happy hormones. The activities such as letter to Lim and the emotional regulation exercises like the body scan and family joy jar are great for helping kids feel in control and manage their own emotions.

Favourite Quote:
"Feelings can seem magical, can’t they?"

A very cool book that illustrates feelings, talks about how to express them and makes the understanding of them more tangible and externalised. Suitable for both children and adults and a great book for families, and neurodiverse individiuals.

Feelings can be so confusing. I love this simple approach that had wonderful explanations and images. This book will lead to excellent discussion of when kids have experienced each feeling. I also like that they’re are activities to do that relate to every feeling- including something science related!

A little guide for the big feelings of small or old people! I love how it gives a scientific explanation of how our brains work and what each part of our brain does concerning our emotions. Also, I loved all the activities that you can do with your children to help them move and overcome their. difficult emotions like sadness and anger.

Nice book for a bit older kids or adults that still have no idea how the whole system works.

I recommend it to every parent with small or teen kids.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author of my ARC.

I enjoyed this book. It was both entertaining while teaching the science of emotions in an easy-to-understand language. Even adults can learn something from this.
It simplifies the scientific process behind how emotions are created/experienced by giving the different actors involved - hippocampus, amygdala etc - different personalities.
I also appreciated the little tips throughout the book about how to manage one's emotions. Like the suggestion about stomping your feet into your ground, when you are mad! I might actually try that next time I am feeling agitated.
Illustrations were fine - not my taste, but nothing negative to say about them. They were interesting enough.
My only real critique is the potion recipes in the book. I understand the idea behind them and can see the logic of creating them with young children in order to make the topic more tangible and engage the tactile sense. But I also see it as a waste of ressources to create these potions. But then again, arts and crafts are important for kids... I don't know. I guess I'm torn on that one.

This book is the perfect combination of the movie “Inside Out” and beloved books and TV Shows “The Magic School Bus”
The author does a fantastic job writing this specifically for kids, using their verbiage and examples they experience in day to day life. They were a genius and gave the parts of our brain little nicknames which made it easier for the kiddos to grasp. The nicknames paired with the captivating illustrations leaves you and your child ready to take on the big feelings.

This book would be a phenomenal resource for quick SEL lessons for teachers or homeschool families. This book something every parent should go through with their children with the opportunity for the kiddos as well as the grown ups to learn from.

*I received this book as an ARC but had the opportunity to truthfully and critically rate this book with my own opinions.