Review: This fun and clever book explores children's crying with advice
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 27, 2014
This is an excellent informative book that addresses an important subject that virtually all parents face: the frequent occurrences of children crying. The book includes crying and laughter recordings that will help parents teach and train children about crying, and Sari Barel offers a free emotion and feelings game to help develop children’s emotional intelligence. The drawings are cute and eye-catching, and will attract children. The book’s subtitle, which is the theme of the book, “My Secret Language,” is psychologically astute and instructive.The crying child in this book is Ruthy. She keeps forgetting nice, happy, and satisfying things that happen to her and cries because she wants something else. Everyone and every part of her body, even her tear stained pillow, are disturbed by her crying and want her to turn off her tear faucet.Ruthy is surprised by everyone’s response to her crying. She says, “Haven’t you ever been a child. Haven’t you ever spoken the secret language of tears?”Ruthy teaches her parents the secret language and prompts them to copy her and cry. Soon Ruthy learns that there are also “tears of laughter,” and this has an effect upon her.After telling her marvelous tale, Sari Barel gives parents ideas how to stop crying children and she shows pictures how to practice a wide range of different kinds of crying.