Title: Danny and the Blue Cloud

Author: James M. Foley

Illustrator: Shirley Ng-Benitez

Publisher: Magination Press (2016)

Pages: 23

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Danny is a young bear cub who is having trouble with his big, dark, and heavy blue cloud. The cloud prevents him from doing fun things. Sometimes the cloud makes him angry or even very sad. But Barnaby the Bunny comes along and teaches Danny a coping system to make the cloud not feel so imposing. With a little help and a lot of practice Danny overcomes his blue cloud and turns it into a vibrant rainbow.

It is no secret, I hope, that the dark blue cloud is depression. It is something that Danny simply has and lives with and is not something that simply goes away. This book, although problematic in some ways, does a good job of exposing children to, in a palatable way, that depression not only emerges in many different ways, but is a lingering thing as well and something that one is born with, as Danny is. This is important because it normalizes the fact that even children deal with inexplicable sadness, anger, and apathy. In addition to this, when Danny’s depression starts to affect him to the point where he no longer even wishes to go to the window to see if his friends will invite him out to play, his mother says it’s okay to feel this way. Again, reinforcing that this is a normal feeling to have.

One day another woodland creature appears, Barnaby the bunny. Hopping along with his pince-nez neatly on the bridge of his furry nose he looks like the resident fairy-tale psychologist. Barnaby notices right away that Danny isn’t feeling well so Barnaby gives him coping mechanisms to fight off the dreary feeling brought on by the blue cloud. Barnaby tells Danny that to maintain a positive attitude that exercise helps so he has Danny hop back and forth. After exercising, Danny must think about all the things he can do and not the things he can’t and, although admittedly difficult, try to think positive things about yourself, not negative. WIth continued help and routine practice of this things Danny starts to feel better and confident until one day his blue cloud is a rainbow.

The ending seems problematic to some extend because this coping mechanism is better suited for the mood depression and not the clinical depression. However, the author has a distinction in the back between these two things and acknowledges the seriousness of clinical depression. He goes on to list signs of depression and gives advice on how to be open and willing to talk about feelings of depression and most importantly to seek professional help. Depression is not something you just get over, it’s a biological thing that needs assistance. With this informative ending and the overall book normalizing feelings of sadness as things that can be managed it can be a useful tool for opening up discussion of those feelings. It is important to let children know that there is a difference between the mood and clinical depression and that it’s not only okay to feel that way, but it’s okay to share and allow people to help and make the feeling better.