I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A beautiful book about emotions. Great illustrations. Will definitely explain things in a way that kids can understand.

An absolute beautiful story about finding out what love feels like. The story was touching, and as you read along you are introduced to other emotions. Fantastic for storytime, and a great use for discussions about feelings and emotions.

A cute and charming little children's book that teaches your child the importance of how and why they feel like they do. Wonderful message and cute illustrations.

Fantastic book! I loved the illustrations and ended up buying copies of it for my school's counselor, as well as the PreK team. They, in turn, shared it with their colleagues.

This book was so charming and touching. Ruby and Robot are friends and the story is all about Ruby trying to teach Robot about emotions. This book is great to help a child understand the wide variety of different emotions that they may feel. This is a great book to help explain to children what emotions are and help them understand how they feel. This book had such beautiful illustrations and was a joy to read.

Emotions are very real, and all are okay, but you need to learn to control them at the same time.

A little girl named Ruby explains to her best friend Robot what emotions are, because he's a robot and cannot feel them. Some of the emotions discussed in the book are more difficult emotions to deal with, especially as a child. The story is told in a way that's highly understandable for young readers, with help for parents and adults in the back. This is a helpful book to get children talking about emotions so that they can learn how to deal with them and understand them better. Kids need this emotional support and we all do for that matter, no matter what our age.

We found the illustrations extremely bright, adorable, colorful, and eye-catching. This is just a lovely book that would be perfect for schools, homes, and libraries. People of all ages can benefit from reading this book. I would've especially loved this book when I was a kid, just like my young ones love it today, and I'm happy to have read it.

5*****

Thanks to NetGalley for sharing a copy of this book with me in exchange for my honest opinions.

I love the characters and the illustrations, definitely a must for my robot obsessed little boys. Charming and highly readable. I loved everything about it and would recommend it to anyone with a young child for bonding time reading. To be blunt, when I think of this book, my heart feels like a “box full of butterflies “.

This is a cute book with great illustrations that teaches kids about all the different emotions. I think this is good for kids as early as two years old.

5★
“‘…and they all lived happily ever after. The end,’ said robot. [reading a story aloud to Ruby]
‘I love that story,’ said Ruby. ‘Did you love it too?’
‘Robot is just a machine. Robot cannot feel love.’
Robot paused for a moment and said, ‘What does love feel like?’
Ruby replied, ‘LOVE FEELS…like a box of butterflies . . . like a colorful dancing kite . . . like drinking in a sunset’”

Author/illustrator Jo Rooks has captured the sense of many emotions so well that this will be an excellent conversation-starter for parents and teachers and children. She describes in words and pictures what love, jealousy, anger, fear, worry, and sadness are.

Robot’s not so sure he wants to know about all of those!

“‘Those don’t sound so nice,’ said Robot.
‘It’s okay, Robot. Those feelings come and go just like happy ones. Everyone feels them sometimes,’ she said, and gently hugged him.”

And you know what’s coming, don’t you? Just like Dorothy’s pal, the Tin Man, Robot FEELS and gets a lovely little red heart. Above it is a little gauge, and wouldn’t that be a handy little gadget so you could see how all your friends are doing? We just celebrated RUOK day this week, and any friends who aren’t OK, would presumably have a low reading on the gauge.

At the end of the book, the author has included a couple of pages of excellent notes from Dr. Elizabeth McCallum to the adults reading with children. She has the following headings, with a good deal of information under each for working with children.

“Note to Parents & Caregivers Elizabeth McCallum, PhD

Why are Emotions Important?
Important Emotional Skills
• Self-regulation
• Emotional self-awareness
• Identifying emotions in others
Developing Strong Emotional Skills
• Learn to recognise your child’s emotional responses.
• Help your child to learn to identify their own emotional responses.
• Help your child develop empathy.
• Model appropriate emotional skills.”

I’m pretty sure Dr McCallum knows what she’s talking about.

“Elizabeth McCallum, PhD, is an associate professor in the school psychology program at Duquesne University, as well as a Pennsylvania certified school psychologist. She is the author of many scholarly journal articles and book chapters on topics including academic and behavioral interventions for children and adolescents.”

This is a terrific resource for all families and schools and counsellors and doctors’ waiting rooms. And, dare I say, a lot of us could do with a look at this for our own interactions.

Thanks to NetGalley and the American Psychological Association (APA) / Magination Press for the preview copy from which I’ve so shamelessly copied the eight illustrations in my pattymacdotcomma Goodreads review.

1. Robot has read a story to Ruby and asks what love feels like.
2. Ruby says it feels like a box of butterflies, among other things.
3. Ruby explains it’s an emotion and Robot might feel others, too.
4. Jealousy is like a green, spiky thistle.
5. ANGER is like a volcano!
6. Fear. Ruby is sometimes scared of the dark..
7. Ruby tells Robot the feelings he thinks don’t sound nice just come and go. . .and then, Robot starts to feel . . .
8. LOVE!

This does for children’s picture books what the “Inside Out” films have done for animated features – colourful, simple, thoughtful, provocative, and above all, helpful.

Get it, give it, share it!

“A Box of Butterflies” by Jo Rooks is another beautiful offering from the American Psychological Association’s Magination Press. I love this series instructive for both children and parents. In this sweet book with the most exquisite and colorful illustrations, Ruby explains about emotions to Robot in poetic language. This touching effective guide teaches children to identify and understand their emotions and includes an equally helpful “Note to Parents and Caregivers” on the topic.

Jo Rooks is an illustrator, author, and graphic designer living in leafy South West London with her husband and two children. Jo studied at Bath School of Art and Design and pursued a career in graphic design. When Jo had her two children, she began to rediscover her love of art, poetry, and creative writing for children. She is passionate about reading with children and hopes to bring lovable characters and meaningful messages in her story books.

Highly recommended! 5/5

Pub Date 30 Apr 2018

Thanks to the American Psychological Association’s Magination Press and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine.

#AboxOfButterflies #NetGalley

This was a story about a little girl teaching a robot what certain emotions feel like. She describes love as a box of butterflies. Fear is a cold heavy stone pressing on you. Anger is a hot volcano.
This would be great to teach younger kids how to express their emotions, and it could still be used for the same discussion with older kids OR to teach about similes and figurative language. Overall, this is a great read, and the illustrations were lovely.

I was greatly surprised to find out this book was about emotions. It starts by a robot asking “what is love”, and a little boy trying to explain it. He uses all sorts of colorful, and great descriptions to describe jealousy, fear, sadness, anger. This book is very well done and a fab edition to any library. However, Publishers - I am getting Tired of the “Note to Parents” or the how to use this book in the back of books. This book does NOT need that.

I love social skill books. This book does a great job teaching emotions. I have read it several times to my kids already.

When Robot reads Ruby a book that ends with "...and they all lived happily ever after. The end." Robot asks Ruby what love feels like. Ruby explains to Robot how love feels, but also how some other emotions such as jealousy, anger, fear, etc. feel like as well.

This book is a short read for kids, so a long attention span isn't required to make it through and it serves as an excellent bridge to open up the idea of emotions to children.

It's gorgeously illustrated. Like I would frame the cover it it was just the imagery it's that beautiful.

There are two things I had hoped for in this book though that weren't present. I had hoped it would cover some positive emotions, when it focused on all negative emotions except for love, which stood out as odd to me. It also didn't cover more ambiguous emotions such as embarrassment or hope, which was also disappointing for me.

Emotions are one of the more advanced topics to breach with kids and I felt the emotions used for this age group were great examples, but also easy ones. Love is such a large concept emotion, I expected the follow up ones to be a bit more advanced as well.

Overall, I love the idea of the book and it's gorgeous and it's a great path for adults to talk about emotions, it was just kind of basic and obvious.

The art on the cover was the first thing attracting me to this book. I like the sense of sweetness and warmth displayed in the robot and child, and the gentle movement of the delicate butterflies (that match the color of the robot's eyes) exhibit in their flight. The font used in the title adds to the beautiful presentation. The book's clever lead is a fairy tale's final words and Robot expresses he does not know what love feels like. As the child describes similes to emotions, the narrative leads towards text and illustrations describing emotions like worry and anger in accessible ways, before ending with...LOVE. On the last page the Robot has a heart, for a tender resolution. I think if the pages had all been used used to describe love, it would feel less like a teaching tool for emotions, and more like a story about love. With that being said, this is an adorable book. I am going to recommend our guidance counselor adds this to her collection, and reads it to the K-2 kids as part of her practice.

This is a sweet book about emotions that should draw in young children first through the lovely illustrations. Very few preschoolers can resist a robot! And then they’ll stay because they’ll recognize the feelings themselves. I would also recommend it to parents as well as a ‘take home’ to read at home if their child is struggling with these same emotions.

I really liked the explanation of feelings in “A Box of Butterflies.” The information after the story will be helpful for caregivers, too.

All questions answered by my 4 year old

Do you like this book?
Yeah! It has a robot and I love robots!

What's your favorite part of the book?
The robot is pretty cool. And I like when he gets mad and explodes like a big volcano! And I like when she hugs the robot and they love each other.

What do you think of the cover?
The butterflies are very pretty and they are flying around the robot!

Do you want me to read it again?
Yes!

Momma Thinks:
This is a really great book that teaches children about emotions and feelings. I think children's books that teach this is so important, so children understand why they're feeling the way they do.

One of my favorite parts is that she says that the bad feelings won't last. That it's fleeting.

This book goes through emotions like love, jealousy, anger, and worry.

A Box of Butterflies has amazing artwork, beautiful colors, and an absolutely amazing message.

We received an ARC copy of this book to review. So the words were a little wonky.

This book is an introduction to social-emotional learning and affective education for kids. It is told through the eyes of a little girl named, Ruby and her best friend, Robot.

She tries to explain to him what feelings are and how different things in life can trigger an emotional reaction. She tells him that love feels like a box of butterflies, a colourful dancing kite, drinking tea in a sunset, and a firefly at night. She uses beautiful poetic language to help him understand what she is conveying.

"Where does love come from?" asked Robot.
"It comes from inside," said Ruby.
"I can't see anything," said Robot.

Ruby then tells him that you can't see emotions you feel them. She goes on to explain the feelings of jealously, anger, fear, worry and sadness, giving him examples so he can comprehend. With her careful explanations comes a miracle inside of Robot, he begins to feel something...

"something fluttery,
something uplifting,
something warm,
something glowing inside him..."

I wonder what emotion is bubbling up inside of him?

I love the simple but powerful message of this book. It is easily understood by children who can relate to those feelings. The illustrations greatly enrich the story. Both Ruby and Robot are such adorable characters and the dialogue between the two is both heartwarming and educational. The author has included a note to parents and caregivers about emotional skills and the book easily opens up avenues for wonderful conversations about recognizing and discussing those emotions. I highly recommend this book.

This is a charming book that explores all the emotions people feel through the eyes of a young girl explaining them to her robot. It's a great title for both the adorable illustrations and the opportunity to discuss how many emotions everyone experiences, how they are all okay, and how none of them last forever.