Tonia Cianciulli’s FLICK YOUR HEART-LIGHT ON, LET YOUR FEARS BE GONE!: Helping Children Connect to Their Heart to Soothe Their Mind is kind and supportive, encouraging children to think of themselves as both loved and loving by nature—as well as helping them to understand why anxieties arise. It also shows them how to use healthy techniques like deep breathing, recognition and acceptance of one’s emotions, specific physical gestures (flicking the heart-light on) to aid in mindfulness, and focused concentration in order to manage them. The language is child-friendly, and there are guiding questions that lead children to think about their emotions and imagine ways to express them positively.
The author describes physical and emotional symptoms of anxiety to help a child recognize them on a concrete level, as well as examples of anxious and fearful thoughts—including “I look silly today,” or “What if they make fun of me?”—making sure that children understand that these feelings are universal and not unusual or odd. Then, using simple and clear language, she talks about helpful and specific methods of coping with them. These include both direct physical action (like deep breathing) and cognitive responses (like drawing one’s focus towards gratitude and happy moments and away from the specific trigger affecting the child at the moment). The child’s value and worth as a human being are emphasized at every turn, and the reader is encouraged to think about “What kinds of things would you say to a best friend or younger sibling who was feeling like this? Can you try saying those encouraging things to yourself as well?”—something a child with low self-esteem may find particularly valuable as guidance. The illustrations were done by the author’s self-taught sixteen-year-old daughter, and are both very well done and well suited to the work: the colors are soft and invitingly warm, full of positive interactions and friendly faces. There is one mention of God and one of prayer, in both cases very general, but otherwise the book is quite accessible to children of a wide range of religious and cultural backgrounds.
FLICK YOUR HEART-LIGHT ON, LET YOUR FEARS BE GONE!: Helping Children Connect to Their Heart to Soothe Their Mind by Tonia Cianciulli is a warm and kind book designed to help kids deal with fear, anxiety, and other painful emotions with kid-appropriate language, specific activities, guiding questions, friendly illustrations, and a generous message.
~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader