Review: When Sadness Is at Your Door by Eva Eland

When Sadness Is at Your Door by Eva Eland

When Sadness Is at Your Door by Eva Eland (9780525707189)

This quiet book looks at how children can handle deep emotions like sadness in a proactive way. It explains how sadness, depicted as a large blue round creature, can arrive without notice and be so close you almost smother. It reveals how sadness can almost become you, but try not to be afraid. Instead listen to the sadness, ask it where it came from, be quiet and sit together for a while. Do things together, even take a walk with one another. Give it room and make it welcome, and then tomorrow is a new day.

Eland takes a rather Buddhist approach to handling negative emotions as she asks the reader to sit with their emotion, welcome it and basically make it feel at home. The book shows that emotions can’t be hidden or pushed away. This approach leads away from anger and misery and into an acceptance that makes this book very gentle. In the art there are clear echoes of Harold and the Purple Crayon in its simplicity. The color scheme is muted and reflects the quiet nature of the text and the content.

A clear and gentle look at difficult emotions. Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from e-galley provided by Random House.