When Sadness Is at Your Door
Helps Kids and Parents Approach
Big Emotions
by Jennifer Garry
( readbrightly.com )
Jennifer Garry is a freelance writer and girl mom who loves reading the newest children’s books as much as she loves a good psychological thriller. She believes fiercely in the power of kindness, empathy, and really good quality chocolate. Jen blogs about motherhood with honesty and humor on her site, Cuddles and Chaos, and hopes to one day have her own book on your children’s bookshelf.
I’m a fixer. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this sort of primal maternal instinct. When I see a person in distress, I must fix it. Whether it’s offering a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, or a great big hug, I have what I can only describe as a physical need to swoop in momma bird-like and take care of business.
After having children of my own, this urge intensified. When my oldest was born, I would carry her around in my arms almost all day long, unable to bear the sound of her wailing when I put her down. Her squished, little red face and the tiny, newborn-kitten cries that turned into full-throated shrieks broke my heart. What was she feeling in those moments that she couldn’t clearly communicate? I had to fix whatever it was.
As she and my younger daughter grew older, the fixing evolved. With bigger kids come bigger-scale problems. These days, I let them navigate the world on their own more often, figuring out how to survive without their momma flying in at every turn. Still, once they return to the safety and privacy of our home, the fixing continues. Whether it’s boo-boos, bug bites, or bullies, I fly in with my arsenal of momma-isms and try to soothe their wounds.
While this all sounds very loving and caring and motherly, it can also be another thing: suffocating.
When you’re feeling sad, there’s nothing worse than someone following you around trying to force false cheer. Sometimes, you just have to surrender to your sadness and sit with it. Maybe invite it in for a cup of hot cocoa and get to know it a little better.
This idea is at the core of Eva Eland’s debut picture book When Sadness Is at Your Door. Through simple sentences and muted illustrations, Eland gives sadness a face and encourages readers to explore it rather than hide from it — or try to fix it.
by Eva Eland
Instead of enforcing the idea that sadness is wrong or something to immediately get over, Eland takes an entirely different approach. She doesn’t make sadness scary or bad. Instead, it’s a quiet guest that shows up and tags along for a while.
While acknowledging that sadness can feel big and heavy, Eland urges readers to “ask where it comes from and what it needs.” This gentle nudge toward mindfulness and self-exploration is a huge step toward more open conversation about mental health and destigmatizing sadness and depression. It’s a way to start a dialogue with younger children about big feelings, and to let them know it’s okay to have them — even if, like the character Sadness, they’re a little amorphous and hard to understand.
For mothering, smothering fixers like me, this book asks us to come to terms with the idea that sadness is normal. It will always pop up and find us (and our babies!) when we least expect it. And instead of telling our children to not be sad or to turn that frown upside down — both of which can bring feelings of anxiety when they’re not quite sure how to do that — this book urges us to teach our children to navigate feelings of sadness in a much healthier and more helpful way. It teaches us that sometimes the best “fix” is to sit and let them be.
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I'm adding some more information about the book which by the way, I highly recommend....
Editorial Reviews
"Children will feel better, too, knowing they have a helpful, honest, and empathetic picture book ready for the next time Sadness shows up for a visit."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Sadness, Eland expresses, need not always feel like an intrusive guest—rather, it’s one whose arrival warrants attention, reflection, and care."—Publishers Week
From School Library Journal
K-Gr 3—This gentle book portrays sadness as a large pale green visitor that appears at the door, suitcase in hand. "It follows you around…and sits so close to you, you can hardly breathe." The narrator advises the host—a small child—not to hide his sadness or be afraid. "Listen to it. Ask where it comes from and what it needs. If you don't understand each other, just sit together and be quiet for a while." Then, try doing something comforting together like drawing, listening to music, or drinking cocoa. And, just as it came, unexpectedly, one day it will be gone. By focusing on the feeling, rather than the circumstance, the book speaks to readers of all ages and backgrounds. The portrayal of the feeling as so much larger than the boy helps convey the overwhelming nature of the emotion. The front endpapers show people of different ages in sad, thoughtful poses with the green creature interspersed—laying down, crying, staring at the ground, etc. The back endpapers show "sadness" doing yoga, petting a cat, taking a bath, eating an ice cream, getting a hug…finding comfort where it can. The handwritten text and illustrative sketches are rendered in brown on cream paper with pale red and green accents. VERDICT This quiet book is both constructive and reassuring and recommended for any collection with a bibliotherapy section.—Barbara Auerbach, Cairo Public Library, NY
* Age Range: 3-7
* Grade Level: PS-2
* Hardcover: 32 pages
*Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
* Pub. Date: January 29, 2019
* Language: English
Meet the author/illustrator
Eva Eland’s debut picture book is a great primer in mindfulness and emotional literacy, perfect for kids navigating these new feelings–and for adult readers tackling the feelings themselves!
Eva is a Dutch author and illustrator who lives
in England. She earned an MA with distinction in children’s book illustration from the Cambridge
School of Art, and has also studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the School of Visual Arts in New York. When Sadness Comes to Call is her first picture book. Eva grew up in Delft, Netherlands, and now lives in Cambridge with her fiancé.
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