- Everyday Life
- Picture Books
- Ages 3–7
The shape of it
The shape of this universe.
Eva Eland's award-winning picture book series about emotional literacy for the very young. Each book takes a single big feeling — sadness, happiness — and gives it a gentle, tangible shape a child can meet, name and sit with, rather than fear. With spare, calming text and simple, beautifully designed illustrations, the books never tip into instruction; they trust young children to feel their way to meaning. When Sadness Comes to Call, Eland's debut, won the Klaus Flugge Prize and has been translated into more than twenty languages, and its companion Where Happiness Begins was a Waterstones Children's Book Prize shortlist title. Together they form a modern classic of emotional literacy: gentle, wise and reassuring, made for bedtime, for hard days, and for opening conversations about feelings between children and the grown-ups reading with them.
A gentle, award-winning picture book series that gives big feelings a shape young children can meet and sit with — modern classics of emotional literacy for bedtime and hard days alike.
Primary themes
Tone palette
- Gentle
- Warm
- Thought provoking
- Heartwarming
The series
One way in.
Cultural footprint
A shelf of evidence.
What Big Emotions has done
- Major award winner
Cultural ubiquity
3/ 5Well-known to people who know the room.
Sensitivity
Low, and collection-wide.
Across the collection
All 2 books.
About the creator