Tyrian Press just announced that Iphelia: Awakening the Gift of Feeling, the Children’s Edition, will be published on January 23, 2019, making it the ideal time to share my first review of a children’s book: Emotional Explorers, by psychologists Maria Mercè Conangla and Jaume Soler.
Over the past year and a half, I’ve prioritized reconnecting with my child self—“Little Linsey”—both in group therapy and as a result of working through Iphelia. Tucking into Emotional Explorers, I expected to experience it through the eyes of a child, either that blond-haired, green-eyed little girl who grew up to be “the editor,” or the eyes of my godsisters, who are 7 and 13.
That said, Emotional Explorers, which is categorized as a children’s self-help book, is strikingly complex, and I find myself engaging it as an educator and adult who’s increasingly captivated by the intricacies of the living world.
The book’s introduction acknowledges that throughout its 64 pages, “environmental and emotional education are discussed as parallel ideas. One concept supports the other, enriches it, and enables us to develop and understand it better.” This was my first introduction to the idea of emotional ecology, and while the book is chock full of adorable artwork, it takes a decidedly scientific approach to laying things out while inviting the child (or reader of any age!) to assume the empowering role of expert on their own experience.
Thumbing through Emotional Explorers’ pages, I was overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude for my own recently rekindled relationship with nature and the people in my life who have made that possible. This year I’ve spent many hours reading in my backyard hammock. I got to swim in the Bahamas and have enjoyed talking about the earth’s microbiome and the implications of stewardship with my friend Matt Bowler of Bowler Organics (who’s also shared loads of probiotic-rich sourdough bread and let me get hands-on in his garden, comparing the intoxicating scents of various tomato vines—made possible by their tiny crystalline trichomes—with the eager help of his seven-year-old son, who already knows far more about tomatoes, pumpkins, ground cherries, worms, and hops than I do).
All this gratitude and the sense of calm, patience, and even self-mastery that comes with connecting to the earth will, for many adults, serve as proof that the activities prescribed in Emotional Explorers are a worthy investment of time and energy, especially for children who are increasingly disconnected from nature and more drawn into the one-dimensional “virtual world.”
Emotional Explorers isn’t a storybook. It’s a guide. Reading it isn’t an activity in itself—it’s a starting place that will have caregivers and kiddos discussing everything from the psychology of different landscapes to the miracles of the water cycle and the temperaments of our animal friends. In doing so, all parties, regardless of their age or affinities, are called to self-awareness, introspection, and empathy.
This book will be best loved by families who are committed to setting time aside to learn and create together and educators who are at liberty to implement novel content in their teaching spaces. I envision Emotional Explorers and Iphelia—both of which teach the language of feeling in unique and inspired ways—living side by side on many bookshelves in the years to come.
Editor’s Bookshelf is a regular review of soon-to-be-released books that, in the spirit of Iphelia, asks important questions about how the written word—and in some cases, imagery—are used to help readers reconnect with their feelings, themselves, each other, and the world around them. Iphelia’s editor, Linsey Stevens, answers these questions—chiming in on who will be most captivated by each book’s contents and how it invites readers to return to a heart-centered way of being.
Emotional Explorers by Maria Mercè Conangla and Jaume Soler will be available on October 28, 2018 from Schiffer Publishing. For more on Iphelia: Awakening the Gift of Feeling, visit our book page. Also check out the printable tiles in our free Interactive Empathy Knows Glossary.
