Jocelyn's Box of Socks - Book Review

Jocelyn’s Box of Socks by Kristen L. Jackson and vibrantly illustrated by Tino Santanach is an imaginatively crafted book to help children understand and cope with the vast array of emotions they will experience. Jackson has created a young girl who has a thing for socks. She loves them and basks in piles of them like Scrooge McDuck does in his vault of money.  She likes to wear them everywhere, in bed, on the beach, playing, and even in the bathtub. But her world was shaken when she receives a huge box of socks from her Nana and Poppa. The mountain of socks were all adorned with many different emoticons. It was a gift that Jocelyn loved, but her new selection of socks became a bit confusing for her. She wanted to wear the correct socks all the time to match how she felt, but that was a dilemma. What she might feel in the morning could be happiness, but that mood could change as the day waned.  So how should she handle or resolve this emotional crisis?
The old idiom of “you wear your emotions on your sleeve,” means that you show your emotions openly in public rather than hiding them from  people and keeping them to yourself. So, if you are happy, angry, or sad, you openly show your feeling to others, and that is what Jocelyn wanted to do, she wanted to wear her emotions on her feet. The portentous socks with emoticons would be impossible to ignore, but they could also easily belie her feelings. She wanted her socks to trumpet her true emotions but quickly discovered that was a difficult task because throughout the day she experienced many different emotions. Should she wear multiple layers of socks depicting lots of different emotions and remove those that don’t fit her feelings or what can she do or what should she do about her constantly changing feelings?
Jocelyn’s Box of Socks’ “target audience” is young children first beginning to enjoy books. Jackson’s book will inspire kids to discuss their multitude of feelings in a kid-friendly, accessible format. I would assume from an educational and developmental standpoint; this book would meet developmental benchmarks typical for Social, Emotional, and Literacy skills. The book definitely has a use greater than just entertaining a child; it helps a child to recognize different emotions, teaching them the names of emotions, and helping a child feel comfortable expressing them.
Tino Santanach’s great bold, bright colored illustrations of Jocelyn, her piles of socks, her cat, her older brother makes the story come alive for children. Glad, sad, silly, mad - Santanach draws Jocelyn’s face to reflect those emotions, which also shows the conflict between what she really feels and what her socks say. Each colorful spread walks the reader through a new mood and experience.  Jocelyn’s Box of Socks could easily become a quirky bedtime favorite for entertainment while subliminally helping explain emotions and feelings to a young child.