Ch-ch-changes

Sometimes I Feel That Way Too
by Hannah Beach (illustrated by Rebecca Bender)

Toronto: Plumleaf Press, 2026
$24.95 / 9781069093561

Hello, Baby, It’s Me, Alfie
by Maggie Hutchings (illustrated by Dawn Lo)

Toronto: Tundra Books, 2026
$24.95 9781774886366

Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic

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Though Heraclitus is thought to have jotted down the obvious—“The only constant in life is change”—about two thousand years ago, humans aren’t total pros at living with the truth of that epigram. 

Let’s blame brain structure, with that deep-seated affinity for habits and routines, predictability and comfort (not to mention its relatively high distress intolerance). 

And I’m talking about adults. For human children, whose brains are in an accelerated growth phase while also in flux, change must present them with a particularly tough set of puzzling challenges.

Unlike you, the reader of these words, kids operate from a deficit when it comes to processing change. They lack experience and the wisdom that can come with it; it is their first rodeo.

For them, consider two pictures books, Sometimes I Feel That Way Too, by Hannah Beach and Hello, Baby, It’s Me, Alfie, by Maggie Hutchings. Both authors address change and propose ways for young readers to grapple with it. 

With Sometimes I Feel That Way Too, Nanaimo author Beach (Reclaiming Our Students:Why Children Are More Anxious, Aggressive, and Shut-Down than Ever—And What We Can Do About It) has one kind of change covered: our internal lives.

Adults might have a passing awareness (or a personal sense) of Walt Whitman’s view of selfhood— “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes)”—but for kids, who are prone to mood swings (more of them, wider swings) far more than adults, the experience of those internal multitudes must be overwhelming. 

Not to worry, Beach maps out a useful way for children to understand themselves.

In Beach’s story, a child’s day begins as he awakens and sees a teddy bear, “all warm and cuddly,” at the foot of the bed. As the boy’s day proceeds, he notices the world around him and assigns to it a variety of temperaments. Throughout, delicate illustrations by Rebecca Bender please the eye and bring a warm nostalgia to the heart.

A gerbil is “funny and silly,” the final leaf on an autumnal tree is “sad and holding on,” an single orange in a basket is “sitting by [its] lonesome,” a snail is “scared and trying to hide,” soup bubbles over, “frustrated and spilling out everywhere,” and a leaky balloon is “disappointed and droopy.” Lastly the boy’s sister, Madeleine, is “full of so many feeling.” With each observation, on the opposite page, a refrain: “Sometimes I feel that way too.”

Beach’s book educates in the best ways. It suggests the sheer variety of experiences and responses to them that every single being—gerbil, orange, snail, sister—might encounter. The story highlights the boy’s empathy as well as his sympathy. It also foregrounds the boy’s healthy self-regard: his okaying his sister’s feelings, the soup’s frustration, the leaf’s sadness, and the balloon’s disappointment is also tacit permission for him—and everyone else for that matter—to accept the shifting multitudes within. The boy hasn’t read Whitman but his outlook embodies a good portion of Whitman’s message. 

(With that said, Dad coming home from work in a mood because some jackass in a truck tailgated him for twenty minutes and then cut him off is not part of Beach’s book. An in-depth explanation of the dark mysteries of the adult personality are perhaps best reserved for older readers whose life experiences have better prepared them for the stuff that keeps the therapy industry afloat.)

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For Maggie Hutchings’ Hello, Baby, It’s Me, Alfie, change is not about moods, but about structure—family structure. Alfie has just learned that his family of three (plus Clive the dog) is about to become a family of four. 

Filled out with vivid colours in an appealing art naïf style (sometimes, as though hand-drawn with wax crayons) by Vancouver illustrator Dawn Lo, the picture book covers the gestation period of Alfie’s pregnant mother.

Addressing his sibling-to-be, from lemon pip size at 6 weeks (when Alfie says, “I don’t know how I feel about you yet”) to 40 weeks, when the the baby is pumpkin-sized, Alfie relates his generally positive senses of what a new sibling might be like, for him.

Change, then, is nothing to fear or avoid; it’s something to embrace as an opportunity. 

And as Alfie (who turns four along the way) charts his little sibling-to-be’s growth (from lemon pip and mango, to cabbage and honeydew) and looks at a sonogram of the foetus, his excitement grows. 

He will teach his sibling so much, he promises. He helps wrap a present for “baby,” imagines the care and support he can give, and that wonder in the world he can introduce.



 

At the same time, the the process is not without hiccoughs. “That’s what all the crying was about,” he explains to sibling-to-be, “Sorry it was so loud.” (Alfie has tried to create a gift but the effort hadn’t quite worked out.)

As with Beach’s book, Hello, Baby, It’s Me, Alfie has a modest goal that it sticks to. Hello, Baby emphasizes both biology (the development of a foetus within a mother’s body) and the consequences of Alfie’s mom’s pregnancy for Alfie. Nowhere does the book reach further—to touch on, for example, the worry or anxiety that a new sibling might cause for Alfie.

Aimed at kids about Alfie’s age, the book introduces the idea of family and beneficial change and possible sibling dynamics. Will My Parents Love My New Sibling More Than Me? would be a different volume, and perhaps for a different age group altogether!

Brett Josef Grubisic assigns, edits, and posts fiction, poetry, and children’s lit reviews for BCR; occasionally, he contributes reviews as well. [He’s written about recent books by Zsuzsi Gartner (ed.), Jennifer Cooper, Caroline Adderson, Sunny Dhillon, Wanda John-Kehewin, Ryan O’Dowd, Michael V. Smith, David Bouchard, Alice Turski, Louise Sidley, K.J. Denny (ed.), Sonali Zohra, Carrie Anne Vanderhoop, Kristen Pendreigh, Sam Wiebe, Maureen Young, Daniel Anctil, and Adam Welch for BCR.]

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The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors: Trevor Marc Hughes (nonfiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster