I Don't Know How To Say It

I Don't Know How to Say It is a tender picture book about Jordan, a young girl who wakes up one morning carrying a feeling she can't name. It isn't a stomachache. It isn't a bad dream. It's just - something. As Jordan moves through her day, she reaches out to the people she trusts most - Mama, Grandma, her best friend Maya, and her teacher Mr. Osei - each offering a word to try on. Worried? Mixed up? Unsettled? None quite fits, until Jordan sits quietly and lets herself simply feel. And then - there it is. Ready. Something good was coming. She didn't know what. But her whole body knew it.

With lyrical, spare prose and vivid, warmly illustrated pages centering a Black girl's inner emotional world, I Don't Know How to Say It validates the very real experience of having a feeling before having the words for it. A closing "Note for Grown-Ups and Educators" connects the story to the CASEL framework for social-emotional learning, making this book a powerful classroom and home read-aloud for children in Pre-K through Grade 2. A "Keep Learning" activity page invites children to draw their own feelings and try on new emotional vocabulary words.

Part of the Young Learners Series from Spence Heritage Press, an imprint of Spence Consultants, LLC, Mount Vernon, New York.