Nietert, Michelle, LPC-S and Tama Fortner. God, I Feel Sad. Illustrated by Nomar Perez. Grand Rapids, MI: ZonderKidz, 2023.

Guide to categories: Kid Review – review of books for elementary-aged and younger children

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Summary

The book features a page with encouragement for parents/caregivers, and a simple exercise to help a child work through a heavy season of sadness. By helping kids process their emotions, parents and caregivers are encouraging them to develop skills for their entire lives. The audio book includes a talk for parents and caregivers on how to help your kids talk about and manage sadness, how to belly breathe through sadness, a section on giving your sadness to God through an imagery exercise, Christian affirmations for when you are feeling sad, and scriptures to give you hope during times of sadness all set to music.

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My Kid Review

We all have times in our life when we feel sad. Sadness can be a difficult emotion to deal with. Nietert and Fortner have written an excellent picture book which gives some great tips for how to deal with sadness. These tips aren’t just for kids, they are for people of all ages. The story is written in such a way that young children can understand the whys of sadness and how to go about overcoming sadness. The thoughts in this book are based in Scripture and the authors discuss God’s role in sadness. 

Normar Perez’s illustrations are very expressive. Children will relate to the diverse children in the illustrations. The pictures compliment the text well. 

God, I Feel Sad would be a great addition to the picture book or nonfiction section of a K-12 Christian school library. It would also be a helpful book for parents, teachers, and caregivers. It is appropriate for preschool and primary aged children.

I received a complimentary copy of God, I Feel Sad. This is my honest review. 

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