Double-Dip Feelings: Stories to Help Children Understand Emotions
While the intent of these two books is admirable, the execution is dreadful. In Double-Dip Feelings, the text is plodding, didactic, and stiff. The idea is to let children know that we often experience two emotions at the same time, but any self-respecting child listening to the book would have only a single-dip feeling: boredom. The illustrations show a wide range of emotions, but they simply can't rescue the text or carry the book on their own merits. In Jessica and the Wolf, the illustrations alone are enough to give good sleepers nightmares. The sappy parents (who take the time to put on bathrobes before going to see why Jessica is screaming) come up with a solution for her--waving a magic wand at the wolf and making him disappear. Not only is this an improbable solution, it completely ignores why the child is having nightmares in the first place. The trend to Donahue-ize children's "issue" books by having experts appear on the horizon to write them creates problems. Grammar and plot development aside, social workers are out of their element, children are ill served, and purchasing these books only helps the publishers. --Christine A. Moesch, Buffalo and Erie County Pub . Lib . , Buffalo, NYCopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.