El monstruo de colores

K-Gr 2–This entry in the internationally best-selling books about The Color Monster (El Monstruo de Colores) continues to provide kids and parents the vocabulary needed to express emotions and tips on how to help young readers self-regulate their emotions. Nuna agreed to do something that she didn’t want to do yesterday, and now she’s not feeling well. Her body is a mix of negative emotions, but she doesn't how to pinpoint what she's feeling and how to fix it. She goes to visit Doctor Monster and it presents her with an Emotions thermometer and feelings chart to help diagnose what is making her feel unwell. The monster then shares its medicine bag filled with strategies and instruments to help Nuna feel better, including blowing bubbles, coloring, massaging clay, deep breaths, moving her body, or creating music. Slowly, she starts to feel better. Following one last hug, Dr. Color Monster also prescribes “No” medicine to help her say no to doing things that make her feel uncomfortable. While this book’s content doesn’t differ very much from the previous books in the series, the first aid kit—like treatment of the self-regulating strategies—is kid-friendly and will help adults better explain these exercises. Llenas includes an author’s instructions on how to make your own emotions medicine bag and advises adults that the best way to teach kids how to keep in touch with their emotions is for the adult in their lives to do the same. The fun and colorful collagelike illustrations have lots of white space and won’t be overwhelming for kids.