This book is perfect for teaching kids how to cope with anxiety, transforming it into a more positive emotion such as resilience or confidence. This book does a variety of things well, so I made them into a list:
1. Portraying worry and the thoughts that come with it. All of the things that Worry was saying are highly realistic, and readers will likely be able to relate to Max throughout the story. The anxious thoughts hold enough meaning to get the book's objective across without bringing the reader down.
2. Simple and useful coping skills. Max discovers that deep breathing and a growth mindset can combat Worry and transform it into a productive emotion: Resilience.
3. Character discovery and development. This book is very well-rounded and is short while still allowing readers to see Max's journey. This increases the likelihood of readers mirroring Max's behavior, which is great!

This was a great read about pressure and worries and especially about teaching the little ones about the harsher feelings and how to deal and regulate their emotions. The illustrations were colourful and really funny too. I loved the flow of this story.

Awesome book!

Anxiety and worry, stress and fear are all valid emotions, but they are especially hard on our kids.
This beautiful book shows how Max deals with all of these hard emotions, making our kids understand that they can do it to.
We loved the book and the illustration too!

This was a great read about pressure and worries and especially about teaching the little ones about the harsher feelings and how to deal and regulate their emotions. The illustrations were colourful and really funny too. I loved the flow of this story.

Awesome book!

This was a fun way to introduce kids to the concept of worry and what’s happening. In this book, worry is an animal that the child can see and talk to. It also shows how it doesn’t take much to change that worry into lots of worries. I like that this book because is not super preachy, and it doesn’t have some weird mnemonic device to remember. It just says this is what it is, and this is how you get help. It’s short and it just works.

Five stars. I loved this picture book. It was simple and effective at showing the influence worry can have in your life. It showed loving and supportive "grown ups" and the child was the hero of their own story. I would definitely read this with my children who were struggling.

This book was so cute! I love how it teaches kids that it’s OK not to be perfect. I like how they characterized worry. This was a great book!

This is a cute book about a boy who is struggling with worry. Worry tells him all sorts of things. Once the boy starts questioning worry and tries things on his own, worry backs off and disappears. At that point “resilience” appears. Unfortunately, I don’t feel young readers have an understanding of resilience. I would have liked to seen more examples of resilience to help readers understand exactly what it is.

This was GREAT. It allows young readers to understand their anxieties and know that you can’t outrun them or make them fly away like a paper airplane. A lot of young kids have these thoughts and this allows them to have a talking point to discuss them. Even if they’re not purple meerkats.

I love the idea behind this book but more me the execution fell flat. I liked that it made worry a companion who was there - showed multiple ways worry can show up (not sleeping, nail biting etc) but the storyline jsut seemed forced and didn't flow or provide connection for me The illustrations did nothing for me. They were ok.

Super accessible way to depict worry/doubt/anxiety for small children. I did feel the "resolution" was too easily won, but I do appreciate the how supportive the parents were with encouraged imperfection and reinforcing love.
Probably best for K-3 aged kids.

ARC from the publisher via NetGalley but the opinions are my own.

Thank you, Net Galley and Kitty Black, for this eARC. My 7-year-old recently went through some big anxiety over the Summer. We have read this book so many times in the past month. I love how Max's worries are purple first and foremost. I love that Max uses his coping strategies throughout the book. I remind her that emotions are a regular part of life but since his worry is a cute, fluffy animal it helps get the point across to someone her age. This is one that belongs on all the classroom shelves.

I loved this book and shared it with my daughter, who struggles with worry and anxiety. I would certainly recommend this to my children’s peers and parents.

A well written and completely relatable for many. So many people adults and children suffer from anxiety. This book puts the worry in an understandable way for children.

This is a very good story about how one child comes to navigate his fear and worry of nothing well in school and disappointing adults that are important to him. Worry takes that shape of a talking purple animal - a meerkat.. This animal takes on the voice of the boy's fears and worries.. The boy's fear of failure and disappointing his teacher turns into unacceptable classroom behavior and lands him in the principle's office and a meeting with his parents. the boy's parent's explain to him that he just needs to do his best. This message changed how the boy responded to the words purple worry meerkat and by verbalizing a different message to his worry his worry turned to another animal - a cat whose name was Resilience.

I really enjoyed this story of a child dealing with academic anxiety. Max's 'worry' about struggling about maths is imaginatively embodied by the purple worry - I can imagine this book being very useful for children facing similar struggles. The ending carries an excellent message of resilience, and I think it will really help children visualise their feelings.

This story is beautifully written and illustrated.

Max and the Purple worry will resonate with a lot of children. The worry that they aren’t perfect, the worry that people will judge them and the worry that they can’t ask for help.

It is a difficult subject to broach but the author has does it thoughtfully and tactfully. I really do believe this book will help alleviate some of the stresses and worries children feel. I especially liked the ending when worry turned into resilience.

Ebook received for free through NetGalley

I finally got a chance to read this book to my kids and it was maybe a bit clunky feeling but adorably cute and perfectly understandable if you’re worrying about something or not liking math. My elementary aged girls said it was great and amazing.

I can see this book being very useful to kids with anxiety. I can especially helpful to kids with math anxiety. It should be introduced to elementary math teachers as a classroom library book. I

Creatively imagined and illustrated animals represent emotions of a child struggling with math anxiety. Notes to adults are helpful for parents or teachers wondering how to approach managing a difficult emotion in the child they care for. The cute meerkat who represents worry could defuse a child's anxiety and make a negative emotion seem manageable. If the story line had moved on a bit further to see the relationship between the kitten, Reliance, and the meerkat and the child it would have been even better. As is, readers may wish for more resolution and opportunities to discuss how negative emotions impact daily life. I would hope for more books like this as a series, but with a better developed ending.