Another beautiful addition to Tom Percival's wonderful collection of stories entering around themes of emotions and mental health for children. Meesha Makes Friends is a heartwarming, quiet story about stepping out of your comfort zone and the magic of creativity.

Another fantastic and heartwarming 'Big Bright Feelings' picture book from the storyteller extraordinaire, Tom Percival!

In Meesha Makes Friend, Percival focuses his attention to the joys and difficulties in making and keeping friends, and, as ever, his signature style is a joy to behold. Beautifully written with striking illustrations that reinforce the story throughout, I am constantly amazed by everything Percival delivers.

Percival gently touches on themes surrounding loneliness, navigating challenging social situations and the struggles in making friends, whilst also celebrating the power of friendship and always being your brilliant, unqiue self.

My 6 year old son enjoyed this book - he is the fan of the whole series. He really liked the bit when Meesha made her own friends and was able to talk to us about the book afterwards. Us (the parents) thought that this book was a great way to explore the differences between people and to help children to understand struggle with social cues. The book is well written, beautifully illustrated and carries a positive, reaffirming message about a value of individuality and helping others to understand and accept them. The concept of the whole series is such a great idea, we own all teh books and will be definitely buying this one too!

This was a lovely story that would be perfect for children who are struggling to make friends, it is easy to read and understand and hopefully will be a massive help for those that need it.

The book would also be ideal to help other children understand that not every finds it easy to make friends and some are better at other stills than making friends, the little girl in the story is much better at making things and using her imagination.

The images were lovely, it was easy to follow and understand - 4 stars from me for this one!

Meesha is a little girl who just can't make friends, everything can get too noisy, and people just don't see the world the way she does.

This is a simple story about kindness and difference and how we make friends. And in her case, make friends to make friends!

As ever, Tom Percival's style here is amazing, perfectly highlighting loneliness and difference with his use of colour and placement. I can recognise my son's autism and sensory processing traits very nicely within this work.

All of the authors books work as as books about emotions, stories in and of themselves, and all highlight a different trait of autism.

The dual themes of remaining yourself, never changing who you are for anyone else, but also allowing others to help you to enrich your own life are present, just like in Perfectly Norman, Ruby's Worry and Ravi's Roar.

I was provided this picture book for review as an ARC, by the publisher, but, as with all of his other work this will be an automatic buy upon release.

Meesha Makes Friends is a story about a girl who is brilliant at making pictures and crafts, but struggles to make friends. Instead, she creates her own friends out of craft materials, but they can't play catch or football. She feels comfortable and safe when she's with them though, which is why she takes them with her to a party. When a boy called Josh watches Meesha playing with her friends and asks if he can play too, Meesha is able to use her homemade friends to make some real ones.

Meesha Makes Friends has Tom Percival's trademark style, with cute artwork and a striking contrast between colour and grey. My five-year-old was able to link this story to Ruby's Worry - another Percival story we've enjoyed. Like Ruby's Worry and Perfectly Norman, Meesha Makes Friends explores childhood worries in a way that is clear for young children to follow and relate to. It's a great conversation starter.

This picture book celebrates being yourself, but also helps young children to understand how who they are fits in with those around them. It is comforting, heartwarming and a joy to read. Absolutely perfect at school, nursery or at home.

Thank you Bloomsbury for providing me with an advanced digital copy of this story for review.

This was a lovely tale that is perfect for children who are struggling to make friends and also to help other children understand that not every finds it easy to make friends.

I absolutely adored the limited colours with black and white, it really made the illustrations pop and made sure that they didn't take away from the story.