Review: Kit Kitten and the Topsy-Turvy Feelings: A story about parents who aren't always able to care

By Jane Evans
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN 978-1-84905-602-1
£9.99
32 pages

Kit Kitten and the Topsy-Turvy Feelings is a therapeutic story book for children aged between two and six about a kitten called Kit whose parent is not always able to care for them. To help support Kit Kitten, Kindly Cat comes to their house and helps Kit to identify the feelings that are mixed up inside.

This is an attractively produced book aimed at parents, carers, educators and social care workers supporting young children whose parents struggle with mental health problems. It is a helpful tool for parents and professionals to enable young children to begin to name and talk about their feelings.

The story, beautifully illustrated by Izzy Bean, portrays the feelings and experiences of Kit Kitten with her mother Kizz Cat, who is sometimes laughing and loud, and at other times, sad, remote, or fast asleep.

At school, the well-meaning Mr Whiskers tries to help, but rescue comes from Kindly Cat, who introduces Kitten and Cat to ways of talking about their feelings.

The book includes feelings-based activities to build a child’s emotional awareness and vocabulary, and guidance about using the book to encourage children to name and differentiate feelings.

In the admirable tradition of Dennis the Duckling, the book sets out to add to resources for social workers and others to talk with young children about complex and painful situations through displacement into a family of animals.

There is much well-observed detail about adults with substance abuse and mental health problems, and children’s responses to the frightening situations that can ensue.

The language in the text does not always have the directness of the drawings however and, overall, I felt the book suffers from trying to do too much.

The idea that recognising and naming feelings may be enough in itself to resolve complex mental health and parenting difficulties, and that children can identify and manage troubling feelings once they have the words to name them, seems to overstate the case for a therapeutic approach that may be valuable as one part of a wider intervention.

The happy ending where problems are resolved as Kitten and Kit learn to name and describe their feelings unfortunately does not accord with reality for many children who have had harrowing experiences of chaotic and unpredictable parenting.

This does limit the usefulness of the book for work, for example, with young children who are in care.