Tough Guys Have Feelings Too by Keith Negley

The only thing that bothers me a little bit is the last page, where the father and son are crying together while reading a book. Fantastic for normalizing emotions among males. The text and illustrations are very nice. It’s obvious the boy is imagining himself as all of these tough guys (super obvious if you look at the back cover illustrations) and experiencing things that make him sad, frustrated, and scared. I guess that’s part of seeing that others are sad, though - we don’t always know why. I hesitate to do so because I can’t always tell for certain why they’re sad and thus might not be able to explain why. Often the people are crying, so I guess that makes it fairly obvious, but there’s a lot to look at in the illustrations, so I think I would have to directly point out to him that they’re crying in some cases. Nowhere does it say in the text that the people depicted are sad or mad or nervous or whatever you have to get all of that from the pictures. Additionally, the message is handled very subtly. (He’s as screen-free as I can get him, and that’s probably why he has no idea what a ninja or superhero is.) He’s also a little young for the target age range, but he often does well with books over his target age. My 2-year-old son doesn’t get this book, really, partially because he isn’t familiar with all the standard tough guy tropes it uses to get its point across. Page after page of various “tough guys,” like pirates, ninjas, cowboys, & wrestlers, showing their feelings - mostly sadness.

Tough Guys Have Feelings Too by Keith Negley