Hello Twigs, How Are You Feeling? by Andrew McDonald and Ben Wood

Title: Hello Twigs, How Are You Feeling?

Author: Andrew McDonald and Ben Wood

Genre: Humour

Publisher: Hardie Grant

Published: 2^nd August 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 48

Price: $10.99

Synopsis: The world is big when you’re a twig! 

From the best-selling creators of Real Pigeons comes a joyous early graphic novel series that you can read aloud.

Stump is having a feeling. A feeling he calls ‘GREAT SADNESS’, because he used to live in the Big Tree, until a bolt of lightning struck him out. Poor Stump!

He bravely tries to stick himself back onto the tree, but his twiggy friends have a different idea. They’ll help you out, Stump. That’s what twigs are for!

The first four Hello Twigs books will be available in August 2023. Perfect for fans of Narwhal and Jelly, School of Monsters and Elephant and Piggie.

~*~

The Twigs are back, and this time, they’re trying to cheer Stump up – he wants to be part of the Big Tree again – where he used to live until he was struck by lightning and fell out of the tree. And because of this, he is having a Great Sadness – poor Stump! As he tries to stick himself back onto the tree through holes, grabbing onto a branch, and using tree sap, his friends have another, extremely fabulous idea to cheer their friend up. Red, Noodle, and Ziggy are ready to go and cheer Stump up!

The twigs are back! And they’re ready to show that being a good friend can mean doing their best to cheer a friend up and finding new ways to make them see themselves in a different way. The twigs are always ready to be there for each other, like good friends always are, and I think this is a fun series to early readers because the problems can be turned into something relatable, like having Big Feelings that you can’t put into words like Stump.

Stories like this can let kids know they’re not alone and that there will always be someone there for them – a friend, a teacher, a guardian – that they should talk to someone they can trust when things might not be going right. I like that these books explore the small things in life – the small challenges that can seem huge -even as an adult, the challenges and hurdles that are small can seem like they are gigantic – it’s all about how we respond to them. So I like it when books like this acknowledge the validity of all these feelings and not always being able to put these feelings into words because it can be hard.

Each book is its own story and lets us get to know the twigs – and if there are going to be more books in the series, I think allowing each character to have their own book in the first four has worked really well. Another great Twigs book!