Whirly Twirly Me
Manjeet Mann and Amanda Quartrey
Harper Collins Children’s Books

Sometimes children get so overwhelmed by their feelings that they find them impossible to control: so it is for the little girl protagonist in the story Manjeet Mann tells.

From the moment she wakes up, the girl talks of feeling a ‘bit whirly, my insides a bit twirly. my stomach in a knot’ which results in a strop, then a flop and at breakfast time, her elder sister takes the last of her favourite cereal. Hmm! This tangled turmoil continues all the way to school despite Mum promising to replace the cereal but things get even worse. A boy takes her favourite pencil to use, friends play a new game, which she doesn’t understand,

Lola tells her, “You’re no fun” and refuses to play.

Back home, on hearing about their daughter’s anger at school, her parents tell her that it isn’t acceptable to get angry for no reason; but still that whirling twirling persists. Up in her bedroom our narrator is overwhelmed and unable to stop stomping until up comes Mum.

As the two sit together and talk, those knotty feelings begin to dissipate until, reassured by hearing that ‘It’s normal to feel all those feelings,’ … It’s all part of who she is, the child finds a smile, a hug and a way to move forward.

Amanda Quartrey’s illustrations immediately take hold of you, as you follow the progtagonist through her day of small upsetting dramas that mount up and up into something really big.
A good book to start a classroom discussion about emotions.