Book Review¦ Modern life is stressful. Even for children, there seems to be an ever increasing amount of pressure. As someone who suffered from anxiety as a child, I know the importance of being aware of and taking care of our mental health from a young age first-hand. Books are always a great way of introducing this! We were recently sent a copy of The Drama Llama by Rachel Morrisroe, which looks at the topic of worries and how to handle them.
The Book
The Drama Llama is a really fun book, full of rhyming and silliness. Aimed at young children, it follows a little boy called Alex. Like everyone, he has worries. He worries about things all children worry about, like not knowing the answer to something in front of the class or falling out with his sister. However, unlike other children, when he worries a very mischievous real-life llama appears! Usually, his llama goes away within a few hours. This time, though, it doesn’t. In fact, the more he worries, the bigger the llama grows. This leads to him trying all kinds of imaginative ways of getting rid of it, before his teacher helps him to successfully find a way to calm his llama!
What Autumn Thought
Autumn loved how sparkly the llama on the front of the book was and was instantly drawn in by the illustrations.
She doesn’t always concentrate that well when being read to, but this story kept her attention the whole time. She picked up on the rhyming and really enjoyed it, pointing it out from time to time. Autumn found both the llama’s hat and its antics hilarious. As well as relishing in the silliness, Autumn also understood the underlying message. It opened a productive discussion about how everyone worries and what we should do if we’re worried about something.
When I asked Autumn what she should do if she felt worried about something, she replied “Talk to you about it and find this book to read about how to calm our llama”. At this point, she showed me the handy list of coping techniques at the back of the book.
What I Thought
I thought The Drama Llama was great. Ella Okstad’s illustrations along with the rhyming are really goofy, fun and engaging for children and parents alike. This book is super silly and entertaining, but of course has that important underlying message of talking about worrying and how to deal with those feelings. It gets the balance perfectly right and helps to open discussions surrounding worries and what to do if they get too big for us to handle by ourselves. I would recommend this book to everyone with young children. We take care of their physical health by giving them vitamins, making sure they get exercise and teaching them the importance of a balanced diet. Yet it’s important to help them to take care of their mental health too – and this story is a perfect introduction to that.
The Drama Llama by Rachel Morrisroe is out now with a RRP of £6.99 at all good bookshops and retailers
Disclosure: We received a copy of this book in return for a review. As always, all views and opinions are honest and my own.
What a cute looking book, fun too. It sounds a great book to help kids talk about their worries. x