Little Dinosaurs, Big Feelings

PreS-Gr 2–A colorful variety of young dinosaurs visit with therapist Dr. Diplo in his cave-based practice. Dr. Diplo addresses each “friend” (read: client) individually through a comic book–style visual sequence charmingly illustrated in pencil and watercolor. Fans of sequential art will appreciate this highly visual format. Each therapy interaction is followed by a several pages that convey how to identify the emotion being focused on and provide illustrated, multistep instructions for an exercise to manage the feeling. In one example, Dr. Diplo tells young Nino, “What you’re feeling is contentment.” He then encourages Nino to do an exercise called The Grounding Tree, where the dino is instructed in part to “breathe out, imagine that you are releasing your worries through the roots to the earth and the ground beneath your feet.” Readers may wonder what worries are being referenced, since this is the section on contentment. Weighing in at a little over 100 pages, the book’s format encourages selective reading via an illustrated table of contents guiding users to specific emotions. While the friends and their problems seem to be in the four- to seven-year-old range, the multistep instructions are targeted at a slightly older band, around eight and up. All characters are depicted as able-bodied, and there is no mention about challenges some face in regard to self-regulation that may make the included instructions challenging or impossible to implement. Fans of Haddow’s Bad Panda and the “Dave Pigeon” series may be disappointed to find earnest instruction in the place of zany humor. An author’s note states that this book is intended “to provide a toolkit for children to grow into emotionally resilient individuals” and to normalize talk therapy; however, the intended U.S. audience may be unable to relate to having private sessions with a therapist.