The Feel Brave Series – The Wolf’s Colourful Coat – by Avril McDonald and Tatiana Minina – Review

Our Verdict: An outstanding series of books that will help young children deal with difficult issues

Our Rating: 10/10

The Feel Brave series is a collection of positive psychology books for children created by Avril McDonald and Tatiana Minina.

Their aim is to help children, aged around 4-7 years of age, deal with some of the difficult everyday psychological issues they may experience in a safe way.

There are five books in the Feel Brave series and cover worries such as fear of the dark, bullying, grief and anxiety. Titles are:

The Wolf’s Colourful Coat
The Wolf and the Baby Dragon
The Grand Wolf
The Wolf Is Not Invited
The Wolf and the Shadow Monster

The author herself suffered anxiety difficulties from a young age and wanted to give all children a way of managing their own. With children’s mental health services such as CAMHS being stripped to the bone and not able to cope with the number of referrals, books such as these can be very helpful as a way of dealing with early low level anxieties.

Avril says: “I want to try and equip children with the tools they need to do this and I’m putting all of my faith in a little brave wolf with a big heart to make it happen”.

The first obvious thing about the books is the stunning illustrations. Tatiana Minina’s illustrations are absolutely beautiful. They make the books a joy to read before even getting to the words.

Avril McDonald tackles the complex issues and emotions through simple rhyming verse. Each story uses a coping mechanism. They teach children a practical way to deal with things such as fear of the dark.

Harder issues covered such as bereavement empathise with the child, acknowledging feelings such as anger and extended grief. Then they cleverly help the child to start moving on through the various stages.

The protagonist is a young wolf called Wolfgang who represents the average child experiencing and reacting to the issues. Children will be able to identify with him and his experiences and this will help them begin to face their own problems. Even if the only thing they take from it is to speak to a grown up if they are being bullied.

As a series of books they will be very useful in any Sen room at nurseries or primary schools. Individual titles will also be very helpful to parents at home depending on need.

£7.99
Crown House Publishing