Annotated Bibliography

Jessica O’Gorman
Faculty of Education, McGill University
EDEE 253: Kindergarten Classroom Pedagogy 
Dr. Sheryl Smith-Gilman
March 15, 2023
Hoffman, M., & Asquith, R. (2016). The Great Big Book of Feelings. Frances Lincoln
Children's Books.

[ Non Fiction/Information Book]

"The Great Big Book of Feelings'' by Mary Hoffman introduces nearly every emotion
to children, while also providing specific examples of how these feelings may be expressed.
For example, when presenting feelings like loneliness, a child is illustrated in the centre of a
group of strangers, and when dealing with excitement, children are pictured asking questions
curiously. It also expresses how to manage feelings like anger by taking a walk, punching a
pillow, or drawing an angry picture.
This book lays the foundation for emotional literacy by introducing young children to
a diverse range of emotions and teaching them how to manage and express their feelings.
Something we could do to continue the discussion could be a feelings collage where students
choose a feeling then use magazines and colours to make a collage based on that feeling.
After the collages are completed, we would have a group discussion about the different
emotions and why certain images were chosen to represent them.

Lee, B. W., & Souva, J. (2019). The Boy with Big, Big Feelings. Beaming Books.

[Language/Rhyming]

"The Boy with Big, Big Feelings" is a children's book written by Britney Winn Lee
and illustrated by Jacob Souva. The story centres around a young boy who feels all of his
emotions like sadness, frustration, fear and happiness very intensely. The boy struggles as he
feels alone with his feelings since he believes he is the only child who feels them this deeply.
One day the boy notices a girl on the see-saw, who was feeling sadness very deeply. The boy
then notices that he is not the only one with big feelings, and that other kids feel just the
same.
This book uses a rhyme scheme that students can easily follow along with, helping
them learn proper vowel pronunciation and reading cadence. For example “Beautiful things
would stick in his brain, and not leave him for hours and hours, the fur of a dog, a fluffy
white cloud, his mama, a banjo, some flowers” By using strategies like pointing at the
rhyming words, and as well as this, for easier words like “too” or “sad,” students can fill-in-
the-gap with phonetic cues. As the reader, pointing out the words that are rhyming may help
students guess the next word as a class.

Llenas, A. (2012). The Color Monster. Little, Brown and Company.

[Picture Book]

The Color Monster by Anna Llenas centres around a friendly monster who is feeling
confused and overwhelmed by emotions because they are so jumbled. With the help of a little
girl, he learns to sort out his emotions and put them in the right jars, helping him feel more in
control of his feelings.
The book is a great book to use with kindergarteners because it uses vivid colours to
represent different emotions, making it easy for young children to understand and identify
different feelings. For example, yellow represents happiness, blue for sadness, red for anger.
Using the metaphor of jars to represent different emotions, the book helps children visualize
their feelings being sorted. After reading this book we could do an ‘emotion jars’ activity just
like in the book. We could use coloured jars to represent each emotion in the book, then have
the students draw pictures of things that make them feel each emotion, and place them in the
corresponding jars, then we could discuss why certain things make them feel certain ways.

Pla, S. J. (2023). Benji, The Bad Day, and me. Lee & Low Books.

[Inclusive]

"Benji, the Bad Day, and Me" is a story about a boy named Sammy who is having a
bad day and is struggling with feelings of sadness and hopelessness. Benji, Sammy’s younger
brother, is also dealing with his own emotional struggles at pre-school. Benji has less
common ways of coping, but when he sees that Sammy is having a bad day, he leaves the
comfort of his box and helps his brother feel better in his own unique way: wrapping Sammy
up like a burrito in his beloved blue blanket.
While the story doesn't directly address autism, it features the character of Benji as a
representation of neurodivergence. The story emphasizes the importance of love, support, and
empathy during tough times, and how people can show this support in different ways. One
activity we could do as a whole class, is make our own box fort just like Benji. By doing this,
we can see how feeling separated from the world might make us feel more calm, and how this
would help when we’re anxious.