Why the Face?

We might interpret the phrase "Why the face?" to mean that someone is cross, but artist Jean Jullien gets readers to think about it differently in this brilliant and original board book about our expressions and what causes them. 

Each page starts with an illustration of a someone making a face – someone with swirly hypnotized eyes, someone with their eyes closed and fingers in their ears, or someone sticking their tongue out, for example. Readers can talk about what the expression might be and what it might mean (what would cause you to make a face like that?) before opening up the glossy fold-out page opposite the face to discover why this particular character is doing what they’re doing. The explanations here are light-hearted and funny: a noisy rock band, a delicious cream cake, a page of creepy crawlies.

This is a really great book to help children explore emotions and facial expression, with plenty of laughs and original, bold ideas and illustrations And because of its style and size, it will appeal to and have value for older readers as well as little ones, providing lots of opportunity to support empathy and emotional intelligence.