Storm In A Jar by Samuel Langley-Swain

This wonderful book follows the story of a young child called Arlo and his journey through grief following the loss of his grandmother.
It's a great way of introducing and explaining the process of grief to a child. I particularly liked the way emotions were shown visually throughout the book using colours and the illustrations. An emotive read for anyone who has experienced grief through the loss of a loved one.

This is a really great book about a boy called Arlo who’s Nana dies and his emotions surrounding her death.

My boys haven’t experienced a big sense of loss in their lives yet but I’m sure this book will help them when needed. We read it together and we were able to talk about not keeping emotions bottled up and how important is is to talk about how we feel.

At the back of the book there is a Storm in a Jar science experiment and a Stormy-Bottle calming craft project too!

It’s a great book which I’d highly recommend to help children process loss.

After viewing the other reviews I couldn’t add anything else. Everyone should have this at home, the most moving children’s book which makes feelings that little ones have become normal, rationalises and helps them to understand the situation. I don’t know if that makes sense but do read the other reviews because they have been so beautifully put xx

This really is a powerful and moving book that explores the grief process.
The book cleverly moves from realism to visual metaphor to explore Arlo’s feelings and reminds us all about the importance of not bottling up our emotions.
The illustrations are beautifully strong with bold bursts of colour, which are sometimes a little chaotic to show Arlo’s anger.
The book also includes a fun ‘storm in a jar’ science experiment and a calming craft project to engage readers.
I highly recommend this beautiful book to readers of all ages

A touching story about a little boy’s struggle to process his emotions when his Nana passes away. The story focuses on Arlo’s emotions accumulating in his Nana’s sweetie jar, something Arlo is finding difficult to let go of. His emotions brewing into a huge storm before becoming too much and escaping the jar.

Upon reading this story to my daughter (aged 5) she immediately recognised that the storm in the jar was Arlo’s sadness and anger. This prompted a conversation about how emotions can sometimes be very difficult to deal with and that ‘putting them in a jar’ does not make them go away.

A great book for prompting important conversations about difficult emotions, and one that will certainly help many children understand their own feelings when dealing with loss. In the back of the book there’s even a couple of ideas for activities for the kids to create their own storms, a great idea to follow on from reading the story.