A Mama Mothy Studios Book
The Apple Bite
Big feelings need more than one tool.
The Story
About the Book
Meet Apple Bite, a friendly guide with a very important job: helping kids explore their emotions and learn what they can do when those emotions become difficult to manage. In The Apple Bite, children are introduced to the tools inside the Emotional Toolbox through simple explanations, familiar situations, and a character who is learning right alongside them. Apple Bite helps children explore what feelings can look and feel like, how to recognize when emotions are getting bigger, and which tools might help them communicate what they need. The goal isn’t to teach children that difficult feelings are bad or need to disappear. It’s to give them different ways to understand those feelings, talk about them, and ask for help when they need it. One tool at a time, Apple Bite helps children begin building a toolbox they can carry with them as they grow.
Meet Apple Bite
Apple Bite is a friendly little guide with a growing Emotional Toolbox and plenty of feelings of their own. Throughout the book, Apple Bite helps children discover different tools for recognizing emotions, communicating what they need, and finding ways to work through difficult moments. Some tools help when feelings are just beginning to grow, while others are there for the really big ones.
Apple Bite isn’t there to tell children how they should feel or to make difficult emotions disappear. Instead, Apple Bite explores each tool alongside them, showing that feelings are something we can notice, talk about, and learn to understand.
Because nobody knows exactly which tool will help until they open the toolbox and try.
Learning With Apple Bite
01
NOTICE
Apple Bite helps children begin by noticing what they’re feeling and recognizing when those feelings are starting to change or grow.
02
EXPLORE
Together, children and Apple Bite explore the Emotional Toolbox and learn what each tool does, when it might help, and how it can be used.
03
FIND WHAT HELPS
Not every tool works for every person or every moment. Children are encouraged to try different tools, communicate what they need, and discover what works best for them.
The goal isn’t to have the perfect reaction. It’s to have more ways to understand what you’re feeling and what might help.
Why We Created It
The Emotional Toolbox began in our own family.
We needed better ways to talk about feelings, especially during the moments when those feelings were too big to easily explain. Telling someone to “calm down” didn’t teach them how, and asking “What’s wrong?” wasn’t always a question they could answer. So we started creating tools.
Some helped us identify feelings. Others helped show how big those feelings had become. Some made it easier to ask for help, begin a difficult conversation, or save something important to talk about when we were ready.
Over time, those individual ideas became our Emotional Toolbox.
The Apple Bite was created to share those tools with children in a way that feels approachable rather than instructional. Through Apple Bite, kids can explore the same tools our family uses while learning something we believe is important:
There is nothing wrong with having big feelings.
Sometimes we just need help figuring out what to do with them.
Who This Book Is For
Who This Book Is For
The Apple Bite is for children who are learning to recognize, understand, and communicate their emotions—and for the adults learning alongside them. It can be read together at home, explored in a classroom, or used by caregivers and other trusted adults as a gentle way to introduce conversations about feelings and emotional regulation.
Who Can Benefit
Children do not need to be struggling, have a diagnosis, or already have difficulty managing their emotions to benefit from an Emotional Toolbox. These are simply skills and tools that can be learned, practiced, and carried forward as they grow.
What This Book Teaches
Most importantly, this isn’t a book about teaching children to behave perfectly. It’s about giving them more ways to say what they need.
Key Messages
This is how I feel.
This is getting hard.
This is what I need.
Current Status
● CURRENTLY IN DEVELOPMENT
The Emotional Toolbox already exists. The tools have been created, used, adjusted, and practiced in our own family. Now Apple Bite is helping us turn those tools into a book children can explore for themselves.
The book is currently being written and developed one tool at a time, with each section designed to explain not only what a tool is, but how children and the adults around them can actually use it.
There is no release date yet. Like most things at Mama Mothy Studios, it is being worked on alongside several other wandering ideas and projects.
Apple Bite will be ready when the toolbox—and my wandering brain—agree that we’re done. 🍎
