In My Heart: A Book of Feelings
by Jo Witek · Growing Hearts #1
The essential emotional vocabulary picture book — names and validates ten feelings through beautiful metaphors and a die-cut heart
The story
A child explores ten distinct feelings — happy, brave, mad, calm, broken, sad, hopeful, afraid, silly, and shy — describing each through vivid sensory metaphors. The heart is like a house with all these feelings living inside, and each emotion gets its own spread with a unique physical comparison and affirming label.
Age verdict
Best at 3-5, works beautifully through age 8 for writing activities and emotional discussions. Even toddlers respond to the rhythm and illustrations.
Our take
SEL powerhouse with exceptional teacher and parent value — a quiet emotional literacy tool that serves the classroom and bedtime far better than the playground
What stands out
Each audience's top 3 dimensions. Out of 30 scored per book.
Kids love
- Heart-punch Strong
Tier 3: Comparable to Eyes That Kiss in the Corners , triangulated with Clementine . Elephant-weight sadness and dark-cloud imagery land with force.
- Ending satisfaction Strong
Comparable to Mercy Watson — question-based closure inviting continuation. Sits below K6=8 because not complete plot resolution. The closing pride-naming provides genuine emotional completion beyond question.
Parents love
- Emotional sophistication Strong
Comparable to Coyote Sunrise — names 10 distinct emotions with nuanced sensory language; sad-to-hopeful cyclical modeling is sophisticated. Mean-words distinction teaches relational vs existential sadness nuance.
- Reading gateway Strong
Comparable to Interrupting Chicken — minimal text, full-page illustrations, predictable ritual create ultra-low-barrier access. Children with minimal decoding skills can engage meaningfully through memorization.
Teachers love
- Read-aloud power Exceptional
Comparable to Lunch Lady — anaphora + ritual refrain + exclamatory sentences make this strongest read-aloud model for 3-6 age range.
- Empathy & self-awareness Exceptional
Comparable to Children of Blood and Bone — entire book IS empathy and self-awareness training through emotion naming and validation.
✓ Perfect for
- • Children ages 3-6 learning to name and understand their emotions
- • Bedtime or read-aloud moments that invite parent-child emotional sharing
- • Classroom SEL curriculum for PreK through 2nd grade
- • Children experiencing big feelings who need validation that all emotions are normal
Not ideal for
Children seeking plot-driven adventure, humor-heavy entertainment, or chapter-book complexity — this is a quiet, intimate emotional literacy tool, not a story with conflict and resolution
At a glance
- Pages
- 28
- Chapters
- 14
- Words
- 1k
- Lexile
- 450L
- Difficulty
- Easy
- POV
- First Person
- Illustration
- Fully Illustrated
- Published
- 2014
- Publisher
- Abrams
- Illustrator
- Christine Roussey
- ISBN
- 9781419713101
Mood & style
You'll know it worked when…
Single-sitting read (5-10 minutes). The closing question invites immediate re-reading and personal reflection.
More like this
Same genre, similar age range. Ranked by kid score.
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