How do you become happy?

The Extraordinary Book That Makes You Feel Happy

Author: Poppy O’Neill http://www.poppyoneill.com instagram – @poppyoneillbooks

Illustrator: Caribay M. Benavides instagram – @cari.bay

Published by: Weldon Owen @WeldonOwenUK

Price: £10.99

First line: Your extraordinary young person will explore, discover and enjoy this extraordinary book – sometimes solo and other times with your support – through reading, listening, questioning, imagining, cutting, folding, gluing, playing, sharing and caring.

Genre: Mindfulness, PSHE

Age: Primary School

ISBN: 978191558805

What’s it all about?

The book comprises of 30 separate pages, each with an idea to explore. These ideas are about the reader getting to know themselves and being happy in the moments that are around them everyday, along with an activity to do and keep. Each activity can be easily cut out from the bottom of the page. The activities range from: the sporty (such as yoga poses); to cooking (making breadsticks); to the practical (cutting out and displaying positive messages); to drama (cutting out characters to perform a film); and many other types inbetween.

Why should I read it?

The activities have been well chosen, with a good range to appeal to different personalities. The instructions are easy to follow, with either numbered steps or simple colourful pictures.

At the beginning of the book, the introduction speaks separately to the Grown-Ups and to the Reader, which is very useful. The book is really aimed at anyone at a Primary school level, so some of the introduction to a Reader would be hard for them to read, but then they would need to work through it with a Grown-Up. It is good that the introduction speaks to an adult about the different approaches that their child might have towards the book and that this should be respected. Some of the language could be considered condescending to some, although meeting everyone in the audience’s experiences is tricky.

I really like how at the back of the book, there is a folded pocket in which to keep the activity that you cut out, as from my own experience with children using these types of books, the actually activity can often be lost quite quickly. And, the whole point of these sorts of challenges is that you should be able to come back to them again and again when the time is right and they are needed. They are supposed to be used when things are not going right or you are not coping.

Ideally, the book would be used as a reference for teachers. It would be somewhere they can go to find activities to do with individual children or small groups if they show that they need some extra help in a certain area. The book seems to be aimed more at parents though, rather than schools, so it could be that teachers use this resource in parent workshops. 

Thank you to Just Imagine and the publishers for the review copy.

There is a much more detailed review on the Just Imagine website.