Anger and the Birthday Blunder is a book for children ages 4-8. The book helps children and adults explore feelings, especially anger. It helps kids understand anger and how to respond. It teaches families with children learn about frustration, fairness and self control. The book gives tools for adults to teach kids to use. The book had beautiful watercolor illustrations.

Thank you #netgalley

Anger and the Birthday Blunder is an excellent picture book that tackles children's emotions in a relatable and practical way. The bright illustrations are engaging, and the story does a fantastic job of validating frustration while introducing simple coping strategies.

It’s a wonderful tool for parents and educators to discuss managing big feelings. My only minor critique is that the resolution felt a little rushed, but overall, it's a helpful, positive, and beautifully illustrated read. Highly recommended for your social-emotional learning library!

Anger and the Birthday Blunder” is a thoughtful and engaging picture book that helps kids understand and manage their anger in a gentle, relatable way. The illustrations are wonderful—bright, expressive, and full of emotion—making it easy for children to connect with the characters and recognize their own feelings.

I loved how simple and clear the coping strategies are, and how naturally they fit into the story. It’s a book that supports both learning and conversation. I’ll definitely be buying a copy and keeping it in my substitute teaching bag—it’s the perfect tool for helping kids talk about big feelings in a calm, positive way.

Superb picture book for children. The book provides a very healthy way to assess emotions and to deal with anger. The illustrations are rich and fun. The author and illustrator is a psychiatrist with decades of experience and expertise. My grandchildren loved this book because it is warm, engaging, and funny in addition to being deeply helpful.

A wonderful story about a little girl (and her brother) navigating big emotions!
I was genuinely impressed by the quality of this book—the thoughtful strategies it offers parents, the sweet little song to remember and use with our own children, and the beautiful colours and illustrations. My 5-year-old son loved it, and reading it together led to great questions and a meaningful conversation about anger.
I highly recommend this picture book to both parents and librarians!

I really liked this one. Quite often, our kids find themselves with big feelings and don't know what to do. This story gives wonderful lessons.

Anger Management for Tessa
It is Tessa’s birthday, but things go far too wrong. Tessa gets some big feelings that she is unable to handle. Then through Mia, Tessa finds what her feelings are and how to handle her emotions so that she is not overwhelmed by it. Neat illustrations and good guide for older kids.

I like the ideas in 'Anger and the Birthday Blunder' especially the song and using clues to figure out your emotions. As a speech therapist, I am always on the look out for books to use with my students who have difficulty managing their emotions.
Things I liked:
- the way Tessa was led through identifying her emotions by her big sister. I liked that Mia used strategies to show Tessa what to do and checked in with her after every step. (step one - thoughts, step two - body, step three - urge)
Things that didn't work for me:
- Tessa's language skills - it was tough to tell what age Tessa was supposed to be. Using phrases like "thats kind of catchy" didn't seem to show her young age.
- The art was odd
- Many of my young students cannot relate to wanting a piano.

A good way to introduce the topic of Anger. This book touched on ways to cope but I would have liked to see more of that. The story was still cute, and the illustration was well done. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

The 123s of emotions are a great tool for kids to use when they're feeling big emotions. This was a story about a girl named Tessa and how she learns to deal with her anger using the 123s--body signals, thoughts, and impulse. The 123s can be used by anyone dealing with emotions. It leads you to think before acting on your emotions. The message in this book is great. The illustrations were well done. Thank you to Cynthia Spellman MD and NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.