What Feelings Do When No One's Looking

May 15, 2022
In this Polish import, emotions take on physical form to express their various natures. Designed not so much to evoke feelings as to quiet them, the sparely detailed gray or pale-hued drawings and even sparer text create soothing visual and verbal rhythms as pages turn. Beginning with Curiosity, who "always climbs as high as possible--to the treetop, the roof, or the chimney," 31 emotions, depicted mostly as rotund, furry creatures with small ears and expressive faces, engage in some telling activity described in a brief sentence or two. Some connections aren't always obvious (readers may puzzle over "Love is an electrician," for instance, opposite a figure steadying an outsized light bulb), but most are clear, such as "Calm pets a dog," "Insecurities build cages," and "Anxiety juggles." (Zając effectively sharpens this last by putting the beleaguered juggler atop a wobbly unicycle.) Overall there is a subdued, even benign tone to the recitation that not even Hate, presented as a scowling beast chewing through "links and cables" to prevent others from communicating, and porcupinelike Anger, bellowing across two pages, can interrupt. In the final lines Oziewicz properly shrugs off all the personification to ask, "And where does all this live?" and answer: "In us." A shadowy image in a mirror offers a friendly wave in the final image. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A nuanced, ruminative alternative to the general run of more limited, toddler-aimed emotional palettes. (Picture book. 6-8)

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