Wemberly, a little mouse, worried about everything. She was often anxious, fearful, upset, and timid. She became especially worried about her first day of nursery school. But there she met someone who is like herself, and they made friends. The experience she so feared turned out to be one that made her a little more confident.

This is a very sweet little book, with charming illustrations. On the second page, Wemberly is standing in the doorway of her parents’ bedroom in the middle of the night, clutching her stuffed bunny toy “Petal,”, shining a flashlight into their dazed faces. She squeaks, “I wanted to make sure you were still here.” Her grandmother is the complete opposite–on one page she is wearing roller-skates, trendy ear-rings and a sweatshirt with “GO WITH THE FLOW” in big letters on the front.

This is a great book to give a young child who experiences a little anxiety. It acknowledges the emotions without condemning them as silly, but it also makes it clear that the worrying is not helpful. At school, her fearfulness makes Wemberly isolated from the other children, and she would have been stuck if she hadn’t found someone like herself to play with. It might seem to encourage worried children to stick together, rather than mixing with everyone else. But Wemberly does have a birthday party with lots of other children where they all play games together, so she is not a total social outcast. This book should be comforting to children who experience anxiety, and it will help other children understand them more.

Categories: Fiction, Anxiety