Lovely book to read together with family.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my feedback.

I've talked before about the kind of work picture books do - Kids learn everything from the alphabet to the existence of other galaxies from the books we read to them as young children. They're essential tools for helping kids to have names for, & understanding of, everything inside & outside of their own experiences.  But one of the greatest tasks reading with young children undertakes is helping them build their social & emotional vocabulary. We can use picture books to explain all of intangible things that make up the emotions young children might be encountering, some for the very first time. How else are you going to go into specifics about the way anxiety creeps up on you & overtakes your every thought? About how you can feel anger in your hands, feet, heart, & head? About how moods are normal & can change faster than the clouds move through the sky? Picture books have been helping kids learn about, label & process their emotions (and the emotions of those around them) since they were invented, & I - for one - am glad of it.

Two of the latest books I'm adding to my socio-emotional learning toolbox are Ava's Triumph by Mary E Miller & Garrett Bear: Learning From Failure by K. Tang. In Learning From Failure, Garrett sets a goal to be his school's rock climbing champion, and then has to learn how to deal with all the emotions that arise when he doesn't meet that goal. In Ava's Triumph, Ava, a felt bunny, is an artist whose art piece gets accidentally 'ruined', and she has to deal with all the emotions that that brings up. Each addresses the theme in different ways, but both are clear & focused without being preachy, (too often a pitfall of picture books that are trying to impart emotional skill building) & bring an essential understanding of what those words mean, what those feelings are, and how people can best cope with them.




K. Tang is a character educator, and Garrett Bear makes an appearance in multiple books in her Character Zchool series. On her website, you can access additional resources to accompany the books, including worksheets, & she has a pretty interesting Instagram presence where she discusses a lot of different aspects of character education. The book itself also includes a guide to help parents and educators help children learn to deal with failure at the end, which was a nice bonus. I really liked how she broke down failure into manageable concepts for even younger kids - what is failure, what does it feel like, what can we do about it?  So, defining the different emotional pieces of how Garrett feels when he doesn't meet his goal - his sadness, disappointment, & frustration - & moving from that, out to learning that everybody experiences failure sometimes, to finally learning the next steps to recover from failure in a concise & entertaining manner. The steps that Garrett's adults suggest are then applicable to basically any situation where someone feels they have messed up/not met their goal, and that's a takeaway that kids can internalize.

Ava's process is also very clearly shown - through both the clever photographic illustrations & the brief, succinct vocabulary used.  Ava experiences sadness, her disappointment that her efforts have been ruined is evident & not overlooked.  Another hole some books about building emotional skills can fall into is not giving kids enough time to experience the hard feelings - to skip over the sad/frustrating parts in an effort to teach them how to recover. But accepting and experiencing those negative emotions is just as much a part of coping with hard times as the next steps are, and we do kids no favors by attempting to bypass theses moments.  I'm glad that both books dedicate pages & explanations to the time, space & experience of the negative elements of these feelings. Otherwise, we're not being honest with kids, and if we stick to positive toxicity & insist they skip over the feeling bad portion of these emotions, that won't feel real to them, and they won't be able to transfer the skills they're supposed to be learning.  So, when Ava does eventually get to resilience & persistence & happiness & creativity again, it doesn't feel forced or fake, but authentic.  Kids pick up on these intricacies & some authors don't give them enough credit for it; I'm glad both of these books instead embrace it.

Ava's Triumph is shorter, and has a different art style than most picture books, opting for photographs of a felt bunny & her environment. The photographs are bright, fun & cheery, and somehow still manage to capture the emotions of a frustrated piece of fuzzy cloth in a way kids seem to easily interpret.

Garrett Bear is more traditionally, but not less evocatively, illustrated, and has a higher text reading comprehension level - I'd say strictly early readers.  I liked that Garrett interacted with other characters a bit more than Ava, receiving advice & help in a way that was realistic to how most young kids would take on their parent's advice. (Which is to say, not at all, at first. But then to continue thinking about it until it made more sense to them, and then follow it just to see if it would work.)


Both books & both characters had great takes on resilience, perseverance, & understanding your emotions in the moment, so give them a try, if you've got a kiddo who struggles with those.

Both books were provided to me by NetGalley, in exchange for honest reviews.

I loved this precious children’s book. The hand-made felt characters and elements of each page are unique and quite becoming. I’ve not seen anything like this artistry in a children’s book and I find it fascinating.

The story is sweet and simple. I see the lesson as follows: When something goes wrong, take a deep breath, right yourself and repair the damage while keeping a positive grateful attitude.

This book would be an excellent addition to any pre-school or lower elementary grades to teach the invaluable lesson of perseverance. I imagine that this book would also be a favorite in any child’s home library.

I look forward to reading other books by these authors.

I received this advanced reader’s copy from Authors Mary Miller and Linda Woo, Ninewise Publishing, and NetGalley. This is a voluntary review, and all comments and opinions are entirely my own.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4691871427

A cute little book with creative pictures that are intricately staged photographs of a model set of toy rabbits (anthropomorphic, of course!) and their environment and belongings. The story follows Ava, a bunny who loves to paint, as she grieves over a ruined canvas (the other bunnies playing ball knocked it over and the paint got splashed all over) where she intended to paint flowers. But then Ava realises that she can turn her ruined flowers into carrots instead, and create a new work that she can truly be proud of! .While the writing itself is not of the best quality, the sequence of toy photographs creates a pleasant puppet-show like experience that is sure to appeal to very young readers and even make them want to produce their own photo-story with their stuffed animals and toys.

A sweet children book with felt handmade diorama. Such a delight reading. The story about Ava, the little paint artist teach kids to learn to deal with problem with channeling her inner creativity.

Thanks Netgalley for providing me with this cute book.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. Kind of an excellent book, almost live-action with the stuffed rabbits.

This is a very sweet book about how even when accidents and bad things happen to you, you have the ability to try and turn it into something good. If you're painting gets ruined, turn it into something else. Are you making a table and it's gone wrong? Turn it into a chair. This is a wonderful book that all kids will love and learn a valuable lesson from.

This was a sweet little story about overcoming setbacks and failures to come back stronger and make something beautiful. In this photographed story, Bunny accidentally spills paint on her painting of blue flowers. She feels sad and is comforted, but then goes back and uses the spill to create some carrots. It's a fast read with a great message that I recommend for any parent trying to teach their child that failures are an opportunity.

Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

What a triumph indeed! Ava’s triumph tells the story of Ava the artist and how she overcomes an upsetting situation with the support of her family and community. Floss’s (age 5) favourite book of the year so far. This would make a delightful gift.

Ava's Triumph was such a sweet book about turning frustrating things into an opportunity for growth. I LOVED the felt rabbits and photography, this was a change from the standard illustrated books.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a digital review copy of this book.

This is exactly the kind of story I would have loved to look at and read as a child. I loved any book that had rabbits, so this would have been an instant pick up for me when I was little. The story is a simple story of a conflict that comes from an accident at the park.

The book starts with Ava going to the park to paint a picture of some flowers. The picture is ruined when it is hit by a soccer ball by fellow bunnies playing a game. They come to apologize, but Ava is still very upset about paint landing on her painting, and goes home. She goes home and stares at her ruined painting. She starts to feel better as she looks at her other paintings, gets a snack from her family, and thinks about how she can fix the one that is ruined. Ava is determined to make the best of an accident and works and works to fix it.

The next day, the soccer players come by again to apologize for the accident. Ava forgives them and shows them how she changed the accident for the better. It brings to mind Bob Ross's quote of making the best of "happy accidents." This book teaches a good lesson for preschool aged children. The story is simple but charming.

I absolutely adored the pictures in this book. They are photographs of scenes made from felt rabbits in tiny sets. What's not to love? The last page of the book shows a few pictures of the behind the scenes making of the book, which was nice to see the process.

Ava's Triumph is a sweet and engaging story about helping others and forgiveness. The photos are incredible and the story is great.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read and review this title. All opinions and mistakes are my own.

'Ava's Triumph' focuses on a young bunny rabbit who enjoys painting at the park. However, one day her painting is knocked over, and ruined by the footballers who play there.

I love the pictures used within the story. It's so childlike, and comforting. I absolutely love them!

This story has good writing and a lovely storyline. The ending message is brilliant and will teach young children, the message that you can fix something that's broken, and you can turn it into something unexpected.

Personally, this story isn't that memorable, and will seamlessly fit alongside the hundreds of other books in a child's bookshelf. However, I wouldn't want this factor to deter anyone from buying the book, as I know from my teaching experience that young children will adore this book.



Rated: 3 stars

Thank you to netgallery for allowing me to read this book, in-exchange for an honest review.

Not a fan of the puppet setup illustration of this book, and not sure how much it would appeal to most children. The story itself is simple and effective, especially for a reluctant reader.

Ava the artist is painting at the park when her artwork encounters a serious misfortune. After going home in tears, Ava learns to overcome the adversity and finds happiness and friendship as a result.

This is a sweet little book aimed at young children, all about overcoming adversity, disappointment, and making the best of things. The photographs are beautiful, and a lot of work has been put into creating each and every little creature on the pages. The text is simple enough for beginning readers to follow, and the pages are clean and uncluttered.

It's one I'll read to my kids.

~Many thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review~

This book activates the imagination.

My six yr old daughter and I have loved this book. She was cheering along with Ava's and asking great questions about what she could do to figure out the problem. She also now wants to make her own picture book with her toys and it's been a great jumping off point for her creating her own stories.

I liked the message of this story (you can always make something pretty out of something gone wrong), but the pictures just didn't make a good impression. If it were a book for older children, I'd have let go the images, but since it is probably targeted for toddlers whose interest relies mainly on visuals, I have to consider it. If the same story was redone with better illustrations (maybe the same idea done better), I would like it better.

I really loved the illustrations of this simple story, a tale of making lemonade out of lemons and persevering when things go wrong. I especially love that the other bunnies apologized to Ava and that Ava’s hurt feelings of disappointment were not brushed over. The simple text teaches children about resiliency without delving into toxic “smile!” positivity so often pushed on littles. Recommend!

This is the most unusual children's book that I've seen, although admittedly, I haven't seen that many since my daughters were that age range. She made a ton of stuffie bunnies and put them all into scenes, which (according to the website and the end of the book) were all handmade. Truly majestic.

4 Stars
Ava loves to paint in the park where bunnies play. One day, the ball ruins her painting, and Ava goes home feeling sad. Her mother and sister cheer her up with some cake. Ava decides to fix the painting and works on it. The next day, the bunnies come to apologize. Ava forgives them and shows how she fixed the painting.
The story is very simple but has an important moral lesson for little ones. The book doesn’t have illustrations but real pictures. It’s some kind of stop-motion animation set, I guess (another reviewer also mentioned the same).
Thankfully, they shared behind-the-scenes pictures at the end of the book. That helped me understand the concept. It’s rather cute (and a lot of work).
I received an ARC from NetGalley, Ninewise Publishing, and Consulting, LLC, Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Titles and am voluntarily leaving a review.