A little girl helps a monster sort out its feelings in The Color Monster, a pop-up book of feelings, by Anna Llenas. I LOVE this book! I read it over and over and over. It’s in one of the many book bins by my bed and I keep coming back to it. In the story, a girl that’s drawn in black and white, takes a colorful monster by the hand to help him unjumble his feelings and his colors. The idea of the book is for the monster to put each of its feelings in its own jar. She explains that each feeling has a color, like yellow is happiness and blue is sadness, like that. On each set of pages she explains one feeling and really cool art pops up to go with the explanations. When the girls talks about feeling calm; for example, the monster is a pretty green color, on a green hammock, strung between leafy green trees. Later in the book I get to help by lifting tabs on jars and checking that all the feelings are in the right place. Mom bought this book after a scary experience to help us all talk things through. I’m really good now at identifying my feelings — sometimes for fun I’ll even say how I feel in colors. If you’re ever feeling many colors, this could be the book for you! Mom thinks this book could be very helpful to lots of kids right now. She says the pandemic has jumbled up a lot of feelings for everyone, especially kids.
Buy the Book on Amazon OR Buy the Book on Bookshop
I think you will really like The Color Monster. Would you please let Mom and me know what’s your favorite pop up page? We like the page for sadness the best, especially the string rain and interesting clouds. Below is where to find us. Also, for more 3D-type books, check out our short list of best interactive books for children!
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DOWNLOAD FREE PRINTABLES
Put the feelings in the jars — Have your adult read the label on the jar, then match the feelings.
Build-a-Monster — Color and cut the pieces to build your very own paper monster.
Practice cutting – Let the friendly monsters help you practice cutting straight lines.
LEARN YOUR FEELINGS IN SPANISH! Learn to say your feelings in Spanish with this fun video Spanish lesson for PreK.
HAVE SOME BOOK-INSPIRED FUN! Use your finger to trace the rainbow with this easy breathing exercise/activity.
VISIT THE AUTHOR’s SITE: Visit the author’s site for free printable activities under “Recursos Creativos”: http://www.annallenas.com/recursos-creativos.html#.X57pTVNKgqw
TALKING POINTS:
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What was your favorite part of the book? Why?
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Why does the girl suggest the monster put its emotions into jars?
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What color is happiness? Sadness? Anger? Fear? Calm? Love?
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Tell me of a time you felt yellow? (repeat for blue, red, black, green, and pink)
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That time you felt blue (or red), how did you handle it? What did you think? Say? Do? Looking back, what are some other things you could’ve thought, felt, done?
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When you feel red, is it only red? Might there be other colors mixed in there too?
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Next time you feel blue or red, could we try separating the colors into paper jars too?
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What’s your favorite way to feel? What do you want to do when you feel that way?
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What could you say to the monster to help it figure its feelings out better? In other words, what advice would you give the monster?
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Is there anything in this book that you’d like to talk about?
USEFUL INFO FOR GROWN UPS:
Book: The Color Monster: A Pop-Up Book of Feelings
Written/illustrated by Anna Llenas
Age Range: 5-8
Hard Cover: 20 pages
Publisher: Sterling Children’s Books (first published September 1st 2015)
ISBN-978-1454917298
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