The Magical Science of Feelings - Jen Daily - ★★★★.¾

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AUTHOR: Jen Daily
ILLUSTRATOR: Gwen Millward
GENRE: Children's Nonfiction
PUBLICATION DATE: June 11, 2024
RATING: 4.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A brilliant exploration of the “magical science of feelings”, highlighting some important information and action strategies to handle emotions in an easy-to-understand manner. Loved the content as well as the approach. Much recommended!


Feelings are often viewed as ‘abstract’ concepts. Kids know about common feelings, but they do not realise how these are directed within our bodies, originating from our brains but affecting our entire self. Even some adults might be surprised to discover just how much physiology is involved in our emotions.

This book seeks to bridge the gap between the abstract and the concrete. It explains, in as simple a way as possible, how various components within the brain function during various emotions. The feelings tackled by the book aren’t just common ones such as happiness or worry, but also some complex ones such as being overwhelmed.

It is impossible to not think of the movie ‘Inside Out’ while reading this book. (It is one of my favourite animated movies, so no complaints.) Just as ‘Inside Out’ highlighted the individuality of feelings, this book depicts how each feelings triggers a specific response in our mind and body.

What makes this book extra special is that it elaborates on our complex neurological system in a style that children will find easy to understand. Using four comical characters - Amy, Hippo, Neo, Lim, who represent the amygdala, the hippocampus, the neocortex, and the limbic system respectively – the book depicts the role these four play every time we experience an emotion or its reaction, such as butterflies in the tummy or reddened cheeks or tears in our eyes. I love the idea of having cartoonish characters to depict brain functionality and complex scientific terms because it’s such an easy way of making tougher concepts accessible to little ones.

The tagline of this book states: ‘Train your brain to quiet anger, soothe sadness, calm worry, share joy.’ The content succeeds in meeting this claim, offering practical strategies for each of these points. Each of the strategies is accompanied by an activity that kids can do at home. The activity involves either a simple exercise or make-at-home creations. The latter might end up getting messy and a bit wasteful, so I wasn’t a big fan of these. This is the only negative feedback I have about the book. Then again, there are many parents who encourage children towards messy crafts as well, so this feedback won’t be universally valid.

The book has some big scientific words as they can’t be avoided in such a topic, but they whole thing is so beautifully simplified that children won’t be bothered by the technical terms.

There is a special note for parents at the end of the book. I’d encourage adults to read this first, before sharing the book with children.

The illustrations complement the content perfectly. The cartoonish graphics help in making the book feel more accessible than technical. I love how the colour of the pages matched the emotions they spoke about.

All in all, this is an excellent scientific book that takes boring or complicated details about the role of our brain and nervous system in directing our emotions, and offers practical advice on how to boost positive emotions and handle negative ones.

Strongly recommended. The official target age is 5 to 8 years, but I think this would also work wonderfully for tweens. It would be a great fit in homes, classroom libraries as well as counselling centres.

My thanks to Storey Publishing and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Magical Science of Feelings”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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