I read Animals Like Us with my 5-year-old niece and really appreciated how it teaches kids about different emotions in an engaging, interactive way. The artwork is fun, and the humor adds to the charm. While I enjoyed the book and its great message, I’m not sure my niece felt the same. Still, it’s a creative approach to helping kids understand feelings!

Thanks, NetGalley, for the opportunity to read this!

Animals with emotions, we're promised – and animals with emotions we get – all thirteen of them. They have a couple of pages each, and we see them with their specific moods – surprise, delirious happiness, sadness, the grumps. We also get a short snippet of verse about the critter and the situation it's in, an invite to copy the beast facially, and – more importantly – a key little paragraph where we get synonyms to help us understand the emotion, and perhaps something about what comes after it. So anxiety perhaps ought to lead to calmness and relaxation, anger might mean it's bed-time, and sadness generally can be shrugged off before too long.

I liked those bits the best, for the way they gave us a heads-up to the future of our emotion, whether it be thought to be good or bad. The issue here is that with the "can you do…?" line and the poetry, all the entries are rather on the busy side, and the simplicity and clarity this young audience would need is lost somewhat. Still, the variety of moods and animals here is fine, the artwork is pretty decent, and while this might not be the perfect helping guide, it's not going to hurt anybody at all. A flawed four stars, then, which – yup, makes me a surprised sheep, much like the one here.

Before I launch into my review, I would like to say a huge thank you to R. M. Smithn, BooksGoSocial, and Netgalley for the Digital Reader Copy of this title. For anyone with their eye on this title, here is my personal review of the book to help you decide whether you are interested or not. All opinions offered are my own.

With Sad Seals, Silly Goats, Happy Hippos, Confused Camels and many more, this book picks an animal and uses alliteration to assign the animal a feeling or emotion. Every other page introduces the emotion and asks the child to make the face that would represnt that feeling. The following page provides a rhyme about the animal and emotion before explaining it in clearer, direct language.

The illustrations are overly simple. The text, particularly the line, 'can you make a [insert emotion] face?' invites the child to join in the reading because of the repetitive format.

I'm not sure I would have assigned the same animals the emotions they were given but I could see why the author did it from this perspetive.

The interactive element of the book that invites the child to role play might be a fun thing for parent and child to mirror and laugh about together. It's one of those boos where I'm not sure whether it would have a place in my home, but would be at home in an established learning environment such as a school, nursery, library, etc.

This was an inviting book that educates young children about emotions. It prompted engagement by asking the reader to imitate each emotion and even explained when each emotion could be experienced. The illustrations were eye catching and each animal expertly expressed the intended feeling. Recommended for children aged 3-6 or those who need help with social awareness.

I really appreciated the way this book explains the different feeling and emotions alongside imagery that is entertaining for both children and adults. I can't wait to read this to my son and see him make all the different faces.

An absolute must have. This book illustrates and explains the different emotions we feel so well with the chosen animals for each emotion as well as the words. This would make a wonderful Storytime, read- along or read aloud book. The art style reminds me a bit of Eric Carle and does a wonderful job of complementing the words.
My only caveat is it appears that this book is only available in Digital form which I feel like is a big disservice to the work itself. Hopefully that will change.

I received a copy of this eBook from netGalley for a honest review.

What a wonderful way to talk and think about feelings for kids! The animals are all showing what their emotion looks like and the description of the emotions is a wonderful starting point to talk more about each one. An excellent book!

Animated Animals

The animals in this story had a cute alliteration to coincide with the starting letter of the animal type.

The illustrations were animated enough to where you could tell what animal it was but wasn’t overly literal. It definitely made the characters more appealing to the audience.

I think this book would be a great tool for teaching younger elementary school children on how to identify and manage their emotions.

I received a copy of this book from R. M. Smith. I am voluntarily leaving a review. All opinions are my own.

Amazing book to teach children about their feelings. Loved the illustrations and that it made talking about feelings interesting

This is an interactive children's book about feelings. It describes each feeling in simple ways, giving examples of each.

Animals in action to demonstrate some basic feelings.
A good book to start the conversation about feelings with children.
The art style and depictions of situations were interesting and fresh.

The illustrations were lovely and really grabbed my 2 year olds attention. My 6 year old came to join in and loved making the faces to his brother but i would say the book is better for younger readers.

I liked that each emption had a description and also that I could just read the main body without this if my youngest was in a rush to turn the pages.

It covered a lot of emotions and I liked that it didn't demonise "negative" emotions and normalised feeling all of them at some points

This is a beautiful book about feelings, making them understandable for kids. It's a great way to initiate a conversations with my kids about how they feel and why. Beautiful bright graphics.

OMG what a acute book! I really enjoy the art. This will be a wonderful book for young kids or even older kids/ adults who needs to know more about emotions or feelings, especially for schools, therapies, social groups, and more. It has really cute, engaging art and I love the illustration. I love how it uses animals. What I love the most is how it gives a really descriptive, easy to understand explanation that isn't too short or too long about each feeling.

This is such a cute way to teach about animals. The pictures were adorable and it was so humorous. Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this.

I love the fun way this walks kiddos through what different emotions are, what they mean, and how they might feel in your body. My son was quite amused at all the animals and their expressions.

Wow this was a wonderful book for kids. I’m a speech pathologist and work on so many concepts in this book that is packed to the gills with them. Let’s start with alliteration with the feeling and the animals. It’s perfect when teaching my older kids figurative language. Then, we move on to the nonverbal use of emotions. As many of my kids are autistic or language impaired with ADHD, I find the many types of emotions exciting. Most of the time, kids get stuck in the happy, sad and scared emotions. They don’t know when and how to express the others. There is vocabulary and the use of synonyms to describe the emotions. Vocabulary is so important to me and synonyms are extremely hard for many students. They understand antonyms, but can never come up with a same word to describe another. Lastly, questions using predictions and critical thinking. I can’t say enough about how many ways this book helps to expand all these skills. It’s absolute perfection in a simple story.
Oh and I do love the photos as well.

I liked the match of feeling with same letter animal. I feel that this could be a good way to teach elementary school children about identifying feelings especially beyond just the basic ones. I do wish the feeling descriptions on some were different and that perhaps a coping tool was paired with each.

A glossary of basic emotions that children may feel and what they actually feel like. I thought it was interesting that bother anger and grumpy had the suggestion you may need a nap. A helpful tip that my dad always imparted that even now I ask myself when I feel cranky. Although I’m not sure how helpful relegating anger to needing sleep is, rather than stating it could be from something like being sad or scared. Also the buffalo is a bison!

The idea for the book is great. I love that it asks the kids to get involved with the story by mimicking the animals. The art was also incredibly cute and displayed their emotions perfectly. The rhyming pattern tripped us up several times while reading. It doesn't always let you get into a good reading rhythm. I also had mixed feelings on the writing at the bottom explaining the emotions. My child didn't care at all about it but as a parent I think it could make a good conversation starter with your kids.