Member Reviews
I loved how this book digs into how children might see worries in their lives. I have an autistic son who worries a lot. Worries about school, worries about dinner, bedtime, bath time. If anything changes, he worries. I can see this book being an asset for him to read when he is starting to feel the worry monster sneaking in. The art was amazing and the layout was easy to follow. Loved it!
An excellent and succinct example of how to take a psychological hope and put it simply and well.
This book was cute. It took something that everyone deals with and told miss it's okay and how to deal with it.
I really liked this book. The illustrations were lovely, giving the atmosphere to the story, although there is some American phrasing which might need explaining. This is an excellent read for adults to read with children, with lots of prompts for discussion afterwards. (A worry shared is a worry halved?)
The whole book is child centred and is empowering for them: they CAN get rid of the worry. There are different strategies to try either by themselves or with adult help. A useful book for PSHE sessions in KS2 or R-Time.
This book helps children learn about how to avoid worrying. It gives them sweet ideas for distraction and at the end the worry is banished from the house. The illustrations are great and bold and you see 'Worry' hiding in different parts of the pictures...sometimes it's quite difficult to spot him but he's lurking...
An excellent book for children, to open the door to discuss their worries and not be afraid of them. Very interesting and funny illustrations..
My review is also posted to Amazon.com and Goodreads.com under Judy Christiana
"Do you ever have a worry that won't go away? What is a worry, anyway?
A worry is a thought that stops you from having fun, from feeling good, from being happy."
This book portrays a worry as a physical creature that lurks nearby and fills children with oversized concerns. Many of the concerns are ridiculous, like how you might not have enough lemonade to offer if a houseful of elephants show up at your house. But this is great for children, who feel deeply, become very anxious about their originally small worries, and still believe that goofy and unbelievable things might happen in every day life. I liked the art but thought the worry creature was a bit creepy. I think my son enjoyed the creepy factor. (He's a big fan of kids' books with monsters, if that affects your conclusion from this.) Wolff really does a good job turning the problem around: showing the reader how to approach their worries differently and to "show them the door." I think this is a really great book for anxious children, children who like slightly strange illustrations, or even those who just like a good rhyme.
I love the concept of this book. We all have had to deal with things that worry us and sometimes it can take it's toll. However, while the concept and description pulled me in the book could not hook my attention. I like the idea and some of the illustrations are nice but it just seemed to fall flat for me. This is a book that would be helpful in discussing worries and how they can get big and what you can do. It is not one that will sustain attention long for some students though.
This is a child scary book with illustrations similar to that of where the wild things are. It's cute. Children will love it. I wish it rhymed
Liked: Making worry into a monster that is kind of scary, lurking and hiding waiting to pounce. In the end I liked that the story not only shows what worry does but also how to combat it.
I did receive and review this book via a Netgalley ecopy. I know I would have loved it in a print board version.
As a digital version I was unable to fully appreciate the wonder of the illustrations.
Based on text alone, this is a wonderful book I would love to purchase for children.
We all have worries, and this book shows us all (young and old) that we have the power to control them. I thought this was a very important book, and it addressed the concept of anxiety in a way that makes it accessible to children. Anxiety is a BIG deal in our family, so I'm always on the lookout for books that deal with this kind of topic. The illustrations showed worry as the monster on your back, and the text even described worry that way..." You can feel tired from a worry. Or sad. Or sick. A worry can feel like a heavy sack is on your back". There were a lot of simple and silly examples of worries and great advice on ways to get rid of them. This book uses ALL the tricks for coping: avoidance, distraction, checking the facts. There are just a whole bunch of great skills to build on in this little book. And in the end we get to see how easy it is to send those worries packing and SLAM the door. This book would definitely be useful sitting on the shelf of every child therapist, psychologist, guidance counselor, or parent of a child with anxiety. As a matter of fact, I highly recommend it for grown ups! I think I could use a copy of this for myself. I would pull it out frequently.
I enjoyed this short book, and think it would be great to read with young children (no too young - 4 upwards maybe). It's beautifully illustrated, and makes gentle fun of worrying 'situations', and encourages chldren to think of creative situations. I think this would certainly be a good book for an anxious child, and a great conversation starter for parents.
A cute children's book that introduces the fact that everyone has worries, and presents ideas as what to do to help ease the worry. I'm not so sure about the illustrations; they seem quite scary to me. In fact, they reminded me of the book portrayed in the horror film "The Babadook". I think most kids will be creeped out by them.....I certainly was.
A fantastic book that I shared with my 8 year old daughter who has anxiety, as do I. It made her see that she is in control of her worries and all she needs to do is think about something else or talk to me and we can imagine a better scenario.
This was a fabulous book. My son deals with anxiety as part of his autism symptoms and this book was a great way to talk to him about feelings. I highly recommend any parent dealing with worried kids to try this book.
A wonderful children's book thinly veiled as a kind of self-help manual for little worriers!
I really like this book. It uses a big, blue monster as a symbol for Worry or anxiety. It explains page-by-page how one might become worried or anxious, and how to overcome this. It suggests talking to someone about Worry, engaging in activities or hobbies to take your mind off of Worry, telling Worry to go away, etc. I love how it even hints gently at the idea of mindfulness as a means of easing anxiety, something which I think is important for children to learn from a young age: to think about what is happening now and not what could happen.
The illustrations, too, are wonderful. They are very Tim Burton-like, which I love. They aren't too scary, however, for young readers.
Is a Worry Worrying You is a lovely little children's book that I think would be both an enjoyable and a useful addition to your children's library.
"It's hard to worry when you're reading this book. The pictures make you laugh so hard, you can't remember what it was that made you worry in the first place." This unsolicited review from a 10-year-old, self-described 'worrywart' is what totally sold me on this book. If you've a young child or even a young adult in your home/library/classroom who suffers from anxiety, you know how hard it is to turn their attention to something else when they descend into worrying. Try this book. It's hard to keep worrying for the few minutes it takes to read through, so at least you'll break the 'worry cycle' for a bit! Good read-aloud for small groups of first- through fourth-graders. Teens in my library got a kick out of it as well, and it sparked discussion about how to help those who worry.
This lovely and inventive book intends to help children deal with their worries and fears. Beginning with the definition "A worry is a thought that stops you from having fun, from feeling good, from being happy." From there, the author presents a series of amusing and improbable things that might happen and produce a worry. Things such as 100 elephants stopping in for tea to a monster moving in under your bed, each with a handy solution of how to deal with the situation. Kids are reminded that everyone has worries, not just them, and that they have the power to deal with those worries and make them go away.
I wanted to like this book. I actually read it three or four times, hoping that I would like it more on each reading. But that didn't work; I actually liked it even less. I love the premise of the book - teaching children how to handle anxieties and worries. But when I asked the children in my life about the book, they didn't like the looks of it and didn't even want to read it together. The pictures were just too scary for them. The picture of a monsterish sort of thing (the worry personified) on nearly every page, plus all the dark outlining and shading - it's all just too scary. A couple of the children couldn't understand the personification of the worry at all.
I liked some of the suggestions -- choosing to actively do something else rather than dwelling on the thoughts, singing songs, and so on -- were all great ideas. I would have liked to have seen them illustrated a bit better.
I received this book as an eARC from the authors, publisher, and NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review.