Where Is My Smile
By Natalie Reeves Billing
Illustrated By Hannah Jesse

Where Is My Smile? is charmingly illustrative with an engrossing story children can engage with and adults can use as a conversation starter about emotions.

Natalie Reeves Billing has many successful books, including the Monsterous Me series for young children.

Thanks to Love Books Group for the book and review opportunity. Discover more in the blurb and my review below.

Blurb

A beautifully illustrated picture book about mental health for young readers. Where Is My Smile? is the story of a little boy who can’t find his smile anywhere. He searches and searches, but it’s nowhere to be found. Where could his smile be? This delightful picture book is perfect as a bedtime story, and to help little children understand that it’s okay to be sad sometimes, but we can always find our way through it. Where Is My Smile? is the first in a new series of picture books from Natalie Reeves Billing focused on children’s mental health.

Review

This is a well illustrated book of a boy who is very sad. He knows he has a smile, but it appears to be lost. He searched for it around the house. He sees the rest of his family with smiles, but he can’t seem to fin his. Even the rainy weather means the sun has lost its smile… until one day, it all changes and smiles are back.
It’s a simple story where children can have fun looking for the boy’s lost smile and guessing where it may be and how he finds it. It is clear, not only in the blurb, but also in the construct of the story, that with a pinch of ingenuity, it can also be used as a simple conversation starter to engage with children who are sad or becoming depressed. The book holds a lot of family love and a solution to what makes the boy in the story happy.

The illustrations are bold and fun as well as meaningful in a way that will also help children engage with emotions, as well as easily follow the story.

It, in conjunction with other books and support, will be a valuable tool for any parent and an enjoyable story for many young children as they learn about their own emotions and those of others, so it also then brings some empathy and understanding, which Natalie Reeves Billing does very well in her books; as proven not only in this one but also books such as her Monsterous Me series. This book – Where Is My Smile? however, also focuses on wellbeing and specifically mental health p, in a way children will quickly understand through also being entertained.