While it feels like we were born with our emotions, the truth is the range of feelings we experience are not innate—but concepts that we learn from our community. Humans learn emotions much in the same way we learn language. In fact, emotions are so much like language that there is not always a comparable emotional concept between two cultures-—-so not every culture experiences the same set of emotions. The Ilongot people in the Philippines have an emotion called “liget” that has no clear cultural equivalent in the United States. German culture has all sorts of words to describe feelings that cannot be easily translated into one simple English word. With all there is to know about our feels, why don’t we “teach” feelings the way we teach languages? As a mother, I struggled to find a resource that could help me teach my tiny humans about their inner emotional world and the emotional worlds of others—so I made this book. As this project evolved I found that it was not only speaking to my children, but also to my own inner child. 

This book will teach readers of all ages a different emotion or “feel” for every letter of the alphabet. Each letter will introduce a lovingly illustrated person who is experiencing and demonstrating a “feel” through facial expressions, body language, and story. Each story is written to be relatable to everyday life, and followed with questions to encourage dialogue and the development of empathy. Please, enjoy All The Feelz.

sketches to capture more dynamic / less stiff posture