The Boy with Big, Big Feelings

K-Gr 3–A boy who feels his emotions with particular intensity tries to hide them, until he finds a friend who experiences the world in a similar way. Lee describes the physical and psychological sensations of intense feelings quite vividly, in a way that will ring true to many children who experience this type of sensitivity or have autism spectrum disorder. Souva illustrates the emotions themselves as abstract, overlapping, watercolor shapes. The boy is tan-skinned with a round face, round eyes, and an endearing cowlick. His tale is told in rhyming quatrains, which include the occasional odd word choice in order to fit into the rhythm. Additionally, the tidy ending that declares “big emotions affect ALL of us” perhaps oversimplifies the fact that there are children whose feelings do seem and feel bigger than those of others.