Cornelia Maude Spelman

Cornelia Maude’s Spelman’s best-selling books are known for their reliable and sensible texts. Pairing rhyming text with vivdly colored illustrations, her new book A FOOT IS NOT A FISH! helps parents have fun while showing their children that it is not hard to see what is true and what is not, using absurd comparisons that every child--and parent--will instantly understand: "A FOOT IS NOT A FISH, AND A CAT IS NOT AN EGG. CHICKENS DO NOT BARK, AND A HAND IS NOT A LEG. A PEACH IS NOT A PEAR AND A ‘D’ IS NOT AN ‘E’. THINGS ARE JUST WHAT THEY ARE. ON THAT WE MUST AGREE.’ A FOOT IS NOT A FISH! also helps parents make the gentle point that for democracy to work, people need a shared reality: “WE NEED TO KNOW JUST WHAT IS TRUE. TO KNOW WHAT’S REAL, WHATS NOT. ‘CAUSE IF WE GET THEM ALL MIXED UP, WE’LL BE CONFUSED A LOT.” Cornelia has said of her other books: “I wrote “The Way I Feel” picture books to help children name, understand, and manage their feelings—and to help their parents and caregivers, who, perhaps, like many of us, were not offered much help, themselves, with their emotions. I felt sure that such books would be of use, but even my experiences when I was a therapist and worked with young children and families, and my own mothering and grandmothering times, had not prepared me for the touching responses of relief and comfort that these books have elicited. It seems that having their adults read with them about a feeling, turning the pages and looking at the illustrations of animal charcters who are experiencing feelings that the children, too, experience, places upsetting and confusing emotions into the safe world of a book, a safe world where feelings have names and where there are methods to manage them.