What's Inside Your Backpack?

Absolutely amazing diverse book for children about emotions. Helps teach them how to cope with negative thoughts and positive coping skills. The illustration are beautiful, I appreciated how the emotions were shown.

As mother I’m always looking for mental health books for my children. Being a homeschool mom books multiple uses is an absolute pl. this is a story that can easily be made to have extra hands on activities.

I would like to add tw for abuse, some children maybe upset. Zoey had an abusive father. I would recommend this book for young readers who like/need to learn about emotions. Also who have experienced trauma and see they are not alone.

***I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.***.

Wow! This book would be a wonderful tool in a school counselor's office. The little girl in the book has so much weighing her down and I think a lot of kids could relate to her. I liked how all the adults in the book had strategies to help her. I think this book would be helpful for so many kids. A very relevant topic was nicely written.

What’s Inside Your Backpack?

This picture book is such a gem! We meet Zoey who is weighted down by “books” or problems that she is experiencing in her life. She learns how to lighten the load with help from the educators in her life. Educators – we have students are experiencing unprecedented trauma due to changing family dynamics, loss of loved ones to COVID, financial situations etc. We have to be prepared to help them navigate all of these worries. This book is a great starting point to help with those difficult conversations. I can’t wait for a published copy to keep in my classroom. Thank you to #netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The description of this title had me curious & I was positively surprised how well the topic of children and traumatising experiences, was touched in this little lovely book.

Instead of offering an escape into a dream world, this book shows how a child can learn to live with trauma and horrible memories - the metaphor of a "heavy book" was so fitting and the idea of the bookmark placed, very helpful.

What I loved the most was that the book showed that negative experience does not mean for the child to have to cope with it alone - there are people here to help deal with it & to become stronger.

I wish we had more such books, as for children who had to go through hard times - these kinds of books must feel like their new best friends.

What's Inside Your Backpack is about the impact of difficult life experiences, and the feelings that come along with them. This book normalizes the experience of carrying heavy feelings like worry and shame, and discusses strategies that kids can use to start to manage those feelings. This book has a great depiction of school-based emotional supports (school counselor and teacher), and both developmentally expected and trauma-based emotional responses. I can see this book being helpful when used by parents, teachers, school wellness staff, and child therapists to facilitate a discussion with children. The illustrations are expressive and engaging, and characters represent a diverse array of racial and ethnic identity.