Tone: Upbeat, encouraging

Story Quality: This story is straight-forward yet big-hearted. A girl has a Worry (pictured as a kind-of-cute fuzzy, gray monster) who tells her things that “always [make her] feel worse,” such as “You can’t do it” and “They don’t like you.” She realizes that listening to Worry never makes her feel better, and she starts talking back to Worry and telling herself “what is true.” The more she reminds herself that Worry isn’t telling her the truth, the smaller and smaller Worry gets. The girl’s worries will likely be relatable to many children, and her triumph over Worry will likely inspire many worriers to stand up to their own Worries.

Illustrations: Attractive, colorful illustrations (I think they’re colored pencil and watercolor). Worry is pictured as a fairly cute, fuzzy gray monster who shrinks over the course of the book.

Representation: The girl is White with dark brown hair. The Worry is referred to with he/him pronouns. The girl’s classmates and friends are boys and girls who are White, Brown, and Black. The girl is a gymnast, and boys and girls are pictured as her teammates.

Psychological Practices: This book is a great resource for teaching children to externalize their worries (in the girl’s case, she has worries about tests, friends, gymnastics, and nighttime) in order to identify them and talk back to them. It introduces the idea of a Worry Monster, and teaches children that the more they remind their Worry Monsters that what it is saying isn’t the truth, the smaller their worries will get. It shows the girl using positive self-talk (e.g., “I have lots of friends,” “I believe in myself”) and doing things that the Worry didn’t want her to do (e.g., asking a friend to play at recess, trying a difficult move in gymnastics). There is a nice moment when she tries the difficult move in gymnastics and isn’t able to do it at first. Worry comes back strongly and she has to remind him that she just isn’t able to do it “yet.” The book ends with an acknowledgement that Worry will come back now and then, but she’ll be ready for him when he does. Following a read-through of this book, I’d likely encourage a child to draw their own Worry Monster with speech bubbles of what their Worry tells them, followed by a self-portrait with speech bubbles of the child talking back to the Worry like the girl in this story does.

Concerns: The Worry Monster is pictured as a traveler who sets up camp (pictured as a tent and a campfire) with a child in order to make them worry. There’s nothing concerning to me about this. What gives me pause is that the Worry arrives and leaves carrying his belongings in a bag on a stick, which touches on an offensive trope used to depict unhoused people. It’s a small piece of the story, but I wish it were different.