Open! My Heart by Corinna Luyken

MY HEART IS A WINDOW.

Like a window, the human heart can be closed, looking out.

Sometimes it opens and takes everything in.

In her lyric poem, Corinna Luyken's My Heart (Dial Books, 2019), the heart is a metaphor for emotions, a window that can open to feeling or that can be closed as a result of what goes on outside. Dark, rainy days make the heart heavy. Accidents can spoil the day. Sometimes there seems to be a fence between the heart and the world.

BROKEN CAN MEND,

AND A HEART THAT IS CLOSED

CAN STILL OPEN AGAIN.

Feelings can change; mistakes can be forgiven, and sunshine can chase away the blues.

I GET TO DECIDE.

Talking about feelings with young children is not easy, and author-illustrator Luyken takes the heart, the universal metaphor for the seat of emotions, to explore some of the experiences of young people experiencing and dealing with all the the ebb and flow of daily life, with the aim of making youngsters aware of their feelings but able to control them. The author of The Book of Mistakes Luyken uses simple but evocative language and in her soft grayish illustrations represents the heart shape throughout the backgrounds of each page, accented with touches of blue and yellow and to show the flow of emotions in a child's day. Says School Library Journal, "...it begs to be read aloud, and it is a masterful blending of text and illustration."