This book is about the different parts of yourself, the inner manger and inner firefighter, who help regulate emotions. I enjoyed this, though my children didn't seem to understand the concept.

As someone who’s read Dr. Schwartz’s No Bad Parts for adults, I was thrilled to see a kid-friendly version! With its adorable and diverse illustrations, relatable comparisons, and gentle rhyming scheme, this book makes a complex topic surprisingly easy for young children to understand.

It’s a fantastic tool for elementary teachers looking to open up conversations about emotions and self-acceptance—or a meaningful read for a grandparent and grandchild to enjoy together, with a message that resonates for both. A thoughtful, empowering book for all ages.

This is an important book - one I wish I had as a child. One I wish my children had when young. IFS has been life changing for me! I also love the illustrations and the rhyming!

Dr. Schwartz provides a simple way for kids to understand their responses to different scenarios. Based on polyvagal theory, it describes a management/controlling response to circumstances and external stimulations. As well, there is the emergency response (fix it and distraction modes—sort of like fight/flight) and the exile’s response (shame, fear, embarrassment leading to freeze/fight/flight). All valid responses to stimuli.

While validating these responses, and providing some coping mechanisms to assuage the Manager, Firefighter and Exil, the book also encourages kids towards a True Self—courageous, confident, curious, compassionate, etc. This book can help kids verbalize and visualize internal feelings and sources of their behavioral responses.

However, there isn’t any suggestions for how a Manager, Firefighter or Exile maintains relationships with others in different situations. It’s all about self-connection and not interdependence, cooperation, collaboration and exploration (uncovering whether our initial assumptions about the trigger/other person’s actions are legit). Parents and teachers who use this book may want to have discussions regarding these possibilities also.

I appreciate the publisher providing an advanced copy.

I am a fan of the original No Bad Parts and the work the author has done in Internal Family Systems, so I was interested to see a children’s version. If you aren’t already familiar with the model, this book will be a little confusing. I appreciate the effort but it just didn’t translate well. ARC via NetGalley

This picture book introduces children to the basic concepts involved in Internal Family Systems Therapy. The illustrations are expressive and splashy, conveying the emotions and struggles that the characters are experiencing, but I found the writing somewhat confusing. The phrasing is often forced and uneven to fit the rhyme scheme, and unless someone is already familiar with IFS, some of the vocabulary and concepts may not make a lot of sense. Because this book is so short, there's not a lot of context for things. This will appeal most to therapists and parents who are invested in IFS already, and who have their own ideas for how to further explain and implement these concepts with kids.

I was eager to read this book since I've read other titles by Schwartz, and so was enthused to see Internal Family Systems in a format for younger kids. Generally, No Bad Parts does a good job explaining the different parts - Manager, Firefighter, and Exile - but the illustration style felt too busy/bright/almost chaotic for me. A pared-back, simpler style might be more effective in conveying Internal Family Systems, but perhaps that's just my preference. Overall, a sweet book for older children (7-12) to read with their adults and re-read as they grow.

While it's a helpful book that explains what happens inside of us, it might be a little too wordy for children that are too young, which could be a factor in keeping their attention.

This is a book that appears to be about how while the parts of us that can make us act or react in ways that may not be positive (the Exile, the Firefighter), those parts also can be useful at times.
I really like the premise of this and think that it has some positive messages at its core. However, I think the language and ideas might be too tricky for younger children while the illustrations and tone may be too young for older children, which narrows its potential audience somewhat. I also feel that some of it is very Americanized, which is fine if the book isn't aimed at the UK market. Otherwise, some of the phrases like 'lickety split' aren't used much over here.
Lastly, the colour of the print will need to be considered carefully as in some places it's very difficult to read. I appreciate that this is not a finished copy though and likely to be different in print.
Overally, I liked the concept and I might get a copy for our school library, but it just didn't quite work for me.

Well written and illustrated book that explains that people are composed of different people, having different roles and jobs in life. This approach helps to explain why and how we are sometimes helpful to ourselves, sometimes critical, sometimes healing, and sometimes harming. Psychologically comforting and easy to understand. Useful, wonderful, I enjoyed it.

No Bad Parts! Is a child's version of a book by Richard Swartz called No Bad Parts. Which explain Internal Family Systems in a very clear and child friendly way. As an adult learning about Internal Family Systems this book helped me to understand some of the nuances of the theory through analogies and simple explanations. It would be a perfect book for a parent, therapist, teacher or librarian to read to children to explain how their brain works and protects them in different situations. It also helps them understand why they react in different ways when faced with challenging situations. The book explains the different roles The Manager, The Exile and The Firefighter and the kinds of reactions that might be the result of these parts taking over. I think this would be a perfect addition to a personal library, therapist library and school/public libraries.

Thank you NetGalley, Richard Schwartz, Bethany Hegedus and Sounds True Publishing for the opportunity to preview this title and the opinions shared are my own.

No Bad Parts! is expected to be released Sept. 9, 2025.

An informative and compassionate translation of Schwartz's Internal Family Systems model for children. Our brains can be scary and confusing, especially when we're first learning how to truly articulate how we think and feel. This does a great job of laying out the basics, allowing kids to learn that we're made up of many working parts and that none of those parts are, in fact, bad.

The illustrations are fun but a bit busy set against the text; however I am only reviewing the unpublished ARC, so final font formatting may change that.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received a digital ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for a review.

I have such mixed feelings about this book! Initially, I was excited to see a picture book which represents the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model of therapy. I am by no means an expert, but an understanding of the basics of this approach to psychology has helped me in my own life, and I think there are concepts within it, particularly how to recognize being emotionally "identified with a part," that would be generally very beneficial if more people were aware of them.

But ugh, right off the bat, why do so many children's books have such laborious, stilted rhyming? Meter is important, ya'll. So often in a rhyming picture book there's kind of a flow and then they just jam in like five extra syllables in the last line to get a rhyming phrase to work, and I'm like ???

On the positive side, the art in this is a total slam dunk. Rich, layered, evocative of the intense emotions associated with each member of the family system, and how they manifest--the art, plus the general existence of a book about this subject oriented towards younger readers, does make it somewhat worthwhile.

Still, I think if you were an adult previously unfamiliar with IFS, you would come away from this with a rudimentary understanding of the intention, but I think some parts are not explained enough, and some phrases that I understood because I have context might be confusing for those without it.

Kind of a bummer, this is such a good concept, I just wish it was a little more elegantly conveyed.