The Boy Who Illustrated Happiness is, all in all, an uplifting book. It'll teach children the power of love and how important it is to see happier friends around us. I love the illustrations and the characters.

The Boy Who Illustrated Happiness by Victor Dias de Oliveira Santos is a beautiful story about how a young boy's passion for art leads him to start a movement toward spreading happiness. Ben realizes that each child holds within themselves a unique capacity for using his or her special talents to spread joy and happiness to others, and the Happiness Club is born. This is a wonderfully illustrated and culturally diverse picture book that clearly demonstrates to readers, both young and old, the infinite possibilities of spreading joy far and wide if we all contribute even a small part of ourselves.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Linguacious for an ARC of this title.

Lovely book with bright happy illustrations. Perfect examples of how little things can have big impacts. My only criticism would be the text font, I didn’t think matched the beautiful drawings.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. Unfortunately, I cannot read it in the format provided. Thank you.

Such a powerful book to be so short and sweet. It is a children’s book and is emotional and has a message of the importance of making others happy.

The Boy Who Illustrated Happiness revolved around a precocious little boy, named Ben, who enjoys drawing and making everyone around him happy. Whether that be with a smile to a stranger, a drawing, or just doing his best to make others happy. It made me smile reading about Ben's choice to start a Happiness Club by each person doing a kind thing for another person to be in the club. Specifically, I enjoyed that the Happiness Club extended to around the world and was not limited to a certain group of people. This book really makes me think about what I can do to make a person happy each day, especially if a child can do these things...what can I as an adult do?

This was definitely a charming book. I would say it's short but impactful. If I found this book when I was younger, I would've definitely reread it multiple times. The adorable and bright drawings were enough to draw me into the story.

I have next to no issues with it, I just wished we explored the members of the Happiness Club more! Apart from that, this was a lovely book that teaches kids to spread happiness to everyone around them.

I'd give it a 4.5/5. If you have any young ones at home or you love cute and short stories, I recommend you try this book out!

Very powerful book for young children and their parents.

It shows that you need to treat people with love in any situation and when the hard times come, they will cheer you up with the good deed.

Just remain positive!

A sweet little story about a boy who decides to spread happiness everywhere with his art.

Ben loves to draw and he sees that his drawings make people happy. So he decides to form a Happiness Club, the entry criterion for which is one simple idea: you need to make someone new happy every single day. This idea works wonderfully and soon their happiness network goes on increasing, to the point that when Ben needs it on one sad day, it reaches out and brings happiness to him too.

The idea of the book is very simple and yet easy to understand and implement: you can spread happiness with your talent, even if you are small. So you need to use your talent for good and good with automatically come to you in return. I also loved the question the book raises on the last page.

The illustrations of the book are absolutely striking, much needed for a book about illustrations.

Thank you, NetGalley and Linguacious, for the Advanced Review Copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for the free read. It was a good book. Shows kids a good way to deal with emotion and the importance of being nice to others.

This is such a beautiful book that professes the importance of happiness. How important it is to make others happy and to care for their happiness.

This story starts with a boy named Ben who loves to draw. He draws lovely things wherever he goes and his drawings make him and others very happy. One day he comes up with an idea to create a happiness club where to join the club all you had to do was to make one person in the club happy. In this way, the kids can help him make more people happy.

This book is so important with the bullying culture that is so prevalent in schools. Maybe if we parents and teachers read this or similar books to our kids, they can have their happiness club at school and our kids will be safer.

I think we adults also need to read this book along with the kids with so much hatred and hate crimes around us. We all are different and speak different languages but happiness has only one language around the world.

This book can not be independently read by kids just learning to read or level one reader with some difficult words like ‘origami’, ‘official’, ‘approached’ etc.

Ben is a kid who loves to draw. He likes to make other people happy and realizes it makes him happy too. He does this by smiling and drawing pictures for them. Because Ben is only able to influence a small number of people, he comes up with the idea to create a happiness club. This way other kids could help him make more people happy, and that would make those kids happier too. Some of the talents they use include origami, singing, photography, and poetry. Ben keeps trying to make people happy as he grows up and while illustrating children's books as an adult.

This book starts with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world" and ends with the question, "What can YOU do today to make someone happy?" I love that it encourages children to focus on happiness and do kind things for other people. The pictures in this book are colorful and fun but it has a great message too.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a free digital copy to use for the review.

I loved loved loved this book! I think it is a great way to help children get into the habit of doing nice things for other people, simple things like drawing a picture, singing a song, make origami, anything they can imagine. I am not sure this can be read by younger or new readers independently, some words like "origami" might be a little too difficult for them, but I think this is a wonderful book to be read between parents and children and even from teachers at school. Who knows, maybe the class can start their own "Happiness Club!"

We often think good deeds need to be big things but it is often those small things that make leave a lasting memory. Children are naturally good at this, but somehow it often gets lost as we get older. This book can inspire families to make it a new habit, not just within the family but also with our friends and neighbors. After all that people have endured in 2020, a little reminder that small gifts can lead to a lot of happiness.

Thank you, NetGalley and Independent Book Publishers Association for the chance to read this book!

This story is such a cute and heartwarming story. Ben learns to process his emotions creatively at a young age and that makes me happy. I would definitely add this book to my personal collection for my children.

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world." is the quote by Mahatma Gandhi on the first page.
The Happiness Club was started by Ben when he was in early graded school. "Happiness was the official language of the club, and that was a powerful language everyone understood." This was the motto of a club that grew and grew because all you had to do was to make others happy.
Illustrated with vivid colors and delightful illustrations, this book will be a favorite for a long time. Maybe get one for the local library, too!
I requested and received a free temporary ebook copy from Linguacious/Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) via NetGalley. Thank you!

Join the Happiness Club! Where happiness is the common language and all you have to do to become a member is make other members happy by using your own talent.

This books tells the story of Ben, who loves to draw and, most of all, make other people happy with his drawings. It was beautifully illustrated and the morale was really sweet. It encourages children to embrace their own talent and to share it to make other people happy. Well, I can certainly say this book made me happy!

This children's book was truly wonderful. We follow Ben as he finds out drawing makes him the happiest. He uses the drawings as a way of coping with all types of feelings (including the less happy ones). One day he decides to share his happiness and his drawings to make other people happy.

The illustrations were so beautiful and the message it's trying to give to little kids is amazing. It shows how much can be achieved by being kind, happy and sharing your gift with others. Would recommend to everyone who has a kid, works with kids or even to people who just want a beautiful, fluffy story. Feel good 100% after this one!

Thanks to NetGalley and Linguacious for granting the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a cute way to demonstrate the idea of paying it forward and how it's important to make others (and yourself) happy by doing and sharing things you love. I appreciate that it acknowledged other cultures and languages as well. No disrespect to the illustrator if he is Ben (I'm not sure), but I think the end could have focused less on his career choice. If/when reading to children, I would probably make a point of reminding them that it is not actually OK to play with food, put toothpaste on mirrors, etc. I would emphasize his love for drawing and that he finds great happiness in this, so much so that he brings it into every day life as often as he can. Overall, it is a sweet book that would teach young kids the importance of finding happiness, sharing their passion with others, and being kind to others so that they too are happy.

Cute book that appears to be based on a real person! I loved the positive message and the desire of the protagonist to be kind to everyone. The prose felt a bit unnatural and slow at some points, but overall it was a good children's book.