My House Is Like A Sandwich

A Book Review of The Strongest Thing

The Strongest Thing
When Home Feels Hard
Written by: Hallee Adelman
Illustrated by: Rea Zhai 
Published by: Albert Whitman & Co., 2022

The Strongest Thing: When Home Feels Hard
is a picture book for ages 4 - 8, that some of us can relate to and all of us can learn from. The story brings to light the struggles of a child in a household where a parent has anger control issues. The author, Hallee Adelman, skillfully conquers this difficult topic and makes it accessible to young readers. Her use of similes and metaphors throughout the story, pull the reader into the main character's inner experience. This stirs empathy in the reader, a skill crucial to develop in our children. The illustrator, Rea Zhai, adds to the child-focus through her brightly colored illustrations that focus on facial expressions and illustrate difficult situations in a clear, yet age-appropriate manner. 

The book features a young girl, Sera, who finds her home a hard place to be due to her Dad's problems with anger control. He raises his voice and blames his family for things in which they have no control. At the height of his anger, he leaves the house and slams the door so hard, that the glass breaks. This is scary for Sera and creates anxiety as she anticipates what will happen when he returns. Sera thinks of her dad as "the strongest thing," because his anger seems so big, it fills up the house.  So big, in fact, that, 

"...my house looked too small for me to fit back inside it." 

However, in contrast when approaching her school, Sera describes it as,
" ...a shining castle on the hill, big and bright and cheery." 

The contrast in her description between her house and her school, shows us that Sera experiences her school as a haven. The familiar people and routines are comforting to her, and elevate her mood. The school day distracts her from thinking about the scary things at home. However, when the teacher announces that the school day is half over, Sera's mood takes a nose dive. She becomes angry and those sensations in her body, that she experienced during the incident with her father, return. 

"My shoulders sank like a ship, and my belly squirmed with worry."

Ms. Adelman not only focuses on Sera's feelings, but the specifics of how that feeling affects her body. These sensations are described using similes which provides a clear mental picture for the reader to fully understand what Sera is experiencing. In order to name and recognize our feelings, we need to develop the skill of tuning into our bodies. This allows us to recognize those feelings through the sensations we're experiencing. 

After stomping around with her anger, Sera seemed to be calming herself by painting. A classmate then accidentally slams the door and startles her. It reminds her of the door slam and broken glass at home. When this happens, her painting gets ruined and she begins to act "like the bully at home," -blaming, yelling, pointing, seething. Her feelings were so big, that she felt like "the strongest thing." 

After observing her classmate's emotional reaction to her behavior, she knew exactly how he felt. At that point, Sera realizes that BIG ANGER was NOT the strongest thing. She then apologized, wishing her Dad would do the same for her.

After the incident, she feared the worst from the teacher. However, he responded with kindness and support, which is an excellent model for teachers reading this book. His reaction also served as a model for the students, as they then offered support too. Due to the other's reactions, Sera learned that "the strongest thing" is actually being calm and kind. 

The last page of the book leaves the reader with a powerful message. The teacher and the mother are together in the classroom offering support to Sera. The teacher approached this situation as a team player with the parent.  He did NOT call or send a note home about Sera's poor behavior. He solicited the parent to come in and assist him in supporting Sera. Care and compassion in place of punishment. Beautiful. A great message for teachers, parents and kids. 

There are so many important mental health messages portrayed in this book. However, I'm going to zoom in on the importance of emotional regulation in children AND adults. Adults who cannot regulate their feelings, especially their anger, create cycles of trauma in families. One of the most important things to begin learning as a child and throughout one's life is to regulate your emotions. If this skill is not mastered by adulthood, it will negatively affect a person's relationships, family, jobs, and overall happiness. Then, without the proper modeling and teaching, the cycle continues with their children. 

This is the reason why it is crucial to teach our kids about the different emotions, how they feel in their bodies, what makes them feel that way, and what coping skills work for them. Kids need to be allowed to express their feelings openly when younger, so when they are adults, they will have had much experience at managing them. By doing this, the trauma will not pass on to another generation. 

Both men and women can have problems with emotional regulation, however, anger control issues are more prevalent in boys and men. The reason for this is that traditionally, anger has been the only emotion that boys have been allowed to express. It is the emotion that is considered more "manly." Even now in 2022, some boys are still getting the message, "big boys don't cry," or "you're acting like a girl," when expressing any emotion besides anger. By keeping all of the feelings besides anger inside - sadness, hurt, disappointment, fear, etc.- those feelings get wrapped up in one big package called ANGER and that anger grows exponentially inside them.  

For this reason, we need to teach our boys about ALL OF THE FEELINGS. and ALLOW, AND EVEN ENCOURAGE THEM, TO EXPRESS THEM OPENLY. By doing this, they can practice coping and regulating, so by the time they are adults, they will be experienced emotional regulators. Then, and only then, will they grow up to be men who don't continue the cycle of anger and perpetuate trauma in their families. Instead, they will act as models for their children for dealing with emotions appropriately. That is the cycle we want to perpetuate. 

If, as a society, we understand that expressing and understanding all of the feelings makes us stronger, not weaker, the more homes like Seras' will have plenty of room for love and happiness. 

If you wish to purchase this book, or check out the many other mental health books written by this author, visit Hallee Adelman's website HERE.
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An Activity Idea for The Strongest Thing

MY HOUSE IS LIKE A SANDWICH
Sera describes her house "like the middle of an old sandwich, squished and dark and icky." 
For this month's activity, we're going to use this simile, make a sandwich and have the child fill it with the feelings in their house. 

NOW, LET'S BUILD OUR OWN SANDWICH!

Materials:
-White or beige cardstock or construction paper
-Construction paper in many colors
-pencil
-scissors
-brown and black markers

Directions: 
​1. Fold a piece of the white or beige paper in half; using a pencil, draw the shape of a slice of bread.




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2. Cut out the slice of bread; so you have two
identical pieces. 







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3. Using a brown marker, outline the two slices of bread to look like crust; set aside. 






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4. Make a list of feelings that the child would use to describe his/her house. ie. "What feelings is your house usually filled with?"

5. Have them rate each feeling 1 - 5 with 5 being most of the feelings the house is filled with; and 1 being the least, ie. "Is there a lot of that feeling in your house, a medium
amount or just a little?" OR with little ones, draw a picture of a house and have them draw in how much of that feeling is in the house. 

6. Have the child pick a color of contruction paper to coincide with each feeling.







7. Then, cut the number of pieces of each color (ingredient) that coincides with each feeling; Label them with a black marker.







​8. Talk to the child about what happens in their house that makes them feel that particular feeling; Write it on each of the color ingredients.







9. Where does the child feel that feeling in their body? What does it feel like? Write the answers to these questions on each of the feeling ingredients. 





10. Now it's time to put the sandwich together! 
Put one piece of bread first; pile all of the feeling ingredients onto the bread and talk about how much of each feeling is in their sandwich; You can even pretend the ingredients are pickles, mustard or peanut butter, etc.; Cover with the other piece of bread. 

11. Completed Sandwich! 
Crunch! Munch! Mmmmm! Yummy. 
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12. Use some of the things you learned about the child in this activity for further discussion. "What would make your sandwich taste better?" 

13. Have fun!