Book about ‘big feelings’ not just for little childrenDate: 4/11/2023 EAST LONGMEADOW — Anger, worry, happiness and love can be difficult emotions for adults to navigate and even harder for young children. East Longmeadow resident Nancy Moriarty experienced that firsthand when her children were small, so she invented a teaching tool to help. Now, she has turned that tool into a children’s book, “Fuzzies: First Book of Feelings.”
One of Moriarty’s sons, who has autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, struggled with regulating his emotions, she said. To reward her children when they behaved well or were successful in regulating their emotions, Moriarty let them add multicolored pompoms that she nicknamed “fuzzies” to a jar. When the jar was full, she would take her children to a museum or another fun outing.
Moriarty said COVID-19 left many children struggling emotionally. She decided to turn the fuzzies and a poem about feelings that she wrote for her children into a book. Moriarty reached out to several children’s book illustrators and decided to work with Atika Rahmi.
“We talked about the idea for the book and what I wanted it to look like. I told her no children. I wanted any child to be able to relate and see themselves in the book,” Moriarty said. Instead, the characters in the book are the fuzzies, each representing a distinctive emotion — sadness, happiness, anger, jealousy, worry, silliness, shyness and love.
Through the book Moriarty explains how kids should listen to their feelings and then “let them go.” She introduces simple breathing techniques that are appropriate for young children. There are also questions at the back of the book to help parents and teachers talk with children about their feelings.
Moriarty said adults can struggle with emotions, as well. It can be difficult in the moment to remember “respond, don’t react,” she said. The book teaches that feelings “come and go,” Moriarty said, adding that adults, as well as children, are capable of understanding that they can feel “big feelings” and still be safe. “They’re complex feelings, but it doesn’t have to be a complex lesson,” she said.
Moriarty said, “A major lesson at the end of the book is to focus on that feeling of love — loving strangers, friends, and most importantly, oneself. I think love encompasses all the emotions, which makes it unconditional. I see love as truly ‘seeing’ someone with no judgment. It is the strongest energy and helps us understand each other.”
The first people to read the book were Moriarty’s three nephews ages 5, 3 and 18 months old. She said each of them seemed to get something different from it. While the 5-year-old was beginning to learn to read, the 3-year-old named the emotions that the fuzzies were displaying on the page and the 18-month-old pointed at them and made faces that corresponded to how they were feeling.
Eventually, Moriarty would like to create a series of books featuring fuzzies that would explore emotions in different situations such as the first day of school or when a new sibling is added to the family.
Moriarty said the feedback has been “really exciting.” So far, a preschool has purchased the book and read it as a class. Moriarty said she was told the children enjoyed it and some wanted to read the book again the next day. The first-time author has plans to read the book to children at the South Hadley Library and the book will be going to the Bowe Elementary School in Chicopee and a Hartford kindergarten class.
“Fuzzies: First Book of Feelings” is available on amazon.com.
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