Poetry - Rhymes, Nursery Rhymes & Fingerplays, Fiction - General & Miscellaneous, Emotions & Feelings

The Way I Feel

Name: The Way I Feel
Author: Janan Cain
ISBN: 9781884734717

by Janan Cain

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About the Author, Janan Cain

Unable to find a picture book to teach her preschool daughters the words for emotions, Chicago-area artist Janan Cain created The Way I Feel. Aware that many children know nothing more than the words for happy and angry, she describes many emotions, including proud, disappointed, jealous and shy. The colors and shapes in each illustration and the type faces on each page reinforce the mood of the emotion shown. Cain also focuses on the concept of all emotions being normal---"They're all a part of me"---without judgmental labels.

Since the publication of The Way I Feel in 2000, Cain has become a popular "artist in the schools" speaker, demonstrating to young children how they can communicate emotion in their drawings. Her book is also used in libraries, homes, pediatric hospitals, mental health programs and with children with such special needs as autism.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

First-time author and artist Cain treads familiar ground here with a picture book that pales in comparison to Jamie Lee Curtis's subtler and snappier Today I Feel Silly. From scared to shy, bored to jealous, Cain covers the emotional waterfront in a series of rhymes paired with pastel pencil drawings featuring elflike children. The opening spread, "silly" ("Silly is the way I feel when I make a funny face/ and wear a goofy, poofy hat that takes up lots of space"), casts a child in a rainbow-colored clown outfit against a sunny yellow backdrop and heralds the book's main artistic conceit--a palette picked to suit each mood. "Bored," for instance, is played out on a background of drab tans and browns, while "angry" steams with fiery reds and purples. Though energetic and bright, the cartoonlike illustrations skate close to being strident, while the verses are pedestrian ("Sometimes I feel so very sad and really don't know why./ Instead of playing and having fun, I cry and cry and cry"). Ages 4-8. (Nov.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

From The Critics

Strikingly illustrated, Janan Cain's The Way I Feel is a unique picturebook about human feelings, what they are and how the are all part of our human eXxperience and makeup. The strong and eXxpressive images showcase the superbly crafted verse teXxt. Young readers will learn useful words, achieve a clearer understanding into the nature and spectrum of their feelings. The Way I Feel is ideal for parentchild bonding and highly recommended for family, school, and community libraries.

Childrens Book Watch

The Way I Feel will take young readers ages 2 to 8 through a picturebook excursion of all the different kinds of feelings, and show that feelings are neither good or bad, they just are. Strong, colorful, and expressive images by Janan Cain perfectly showcase her imaginative text introducing children to the words they need to name their feelings. The Way I Feel is an original, informative, highly entertaining and recommended picturebook for personal, school, and community library collections.
—Childrens Book Watch