Out of a Jar by Deborah Marcero offers readers a unique visual for holding back our emotions. Llewellyn is a bunny who does not like to be scared. Readers quickly learn about all the things that make him scared. He tries to put the feelings in various places in his bedroom and they it keeps coming a back.
He has an idea to put the scary feeling in a glass jar and there it stays. It goes away. This was so successful, he starts gathering other feelings in his glass jar; sad, so excited, anger, loneliness, joy, disappointment, and so many more. He actually puts them in individual jars and has quite the collection by now.
Then one day while working in the art room at school he feels embarrassed and he doesn't have a jar to put the feeling away. The feeling becomes too much and all the jars with emotions burst. Llewellyn collapses. He soon discovers he can feel these emotions in pairs - excited and worried for example.
The illustrations are send a gentle message. It reads like a soft conversation with a friend and I found myself cheering Llewellyn on even more. Several mediums are used to make this happen; watercolor, pencil, colored pencils, ink and digital media.
The ending offered my bibliotherapy moment -
"Instead, he mustered up the courage to feel them. To share them."
This would be a great companion book for I'm Happy - Sad Today by Lory Britain
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