Children don’t need perfect words. They need someone who remembers what it felt like to be small, and who cares enough to speak directly to that place. That’s always been my why.
I didn’t set out to become a children’s author. Like many things in my life, it found me rather than the other way around. I’ve always believed that the stories we hear in our earliest years become the hidden architecture of who we grow up to be. The words we absorb before we can even properly hold a book — they stay with us.
When I look back at why I started writing for children aged 3 to 8, there was a collection of whys — and they all mattered. But at the heart of it was something simple: I wanted to give them something I wish I’d had. I wanted to connect children with the natural world — with insects, with creatures, with the quiet life that moves through gardens and hedgerows and long grass — and bring the two together. Emotions and nature, side by side. Not a lesson wrapped in a story, but a story that made them feel seen. No labels. Just how emotions feel in the body. No shame, no judgement — all feelings are welcome. All children are perfect exactly as they are.
That moment when a child points at a page and says “that’s me!” — and there is no shame in it, only recognition — there is nothing quite like it. That is the whole point. That is everything.
A book for a child isn’t just a book. It’s a conversation between their world and the wider one — and it happens at exactly the right moment of their life.
Heide Cussell, The Emotions Alchemist
Children aged 3 to 8 are at such a magical and important stage. They are forming their very first understanding of the world — of kindness, of difference, of belonging. The books they love at this age don’t just entertain them. They shape their emotional vocabulary, their beliefs, and their understanding of themselves and the world around them.
I write with warmth because children can feel when something is written with love and when it isn’t. There’s a quality to words written from the heart — a gentleness, a rhythm, a sense that the author is sitting right there beside them on the floor, reading along. That’s the energy I try to bring to every page.
If you’re a parent reading this, know that the simple act of reading aloud to your child — even for just a few minutes each day — is one of the most powerful gifts you can give them. It is more than a story. It is a life connection. And if one of my books happens to be the one in your hands tonight, thank you. Truly. It means more than you know.
The Garden of Feelings Series
Book 1 — The Garden of Feelings
Book 2 — Emotions Colouring and Reading
Book 3 — Tiny Wings, Big Feelings
Book 4 — The Garden Within
Book 5 — Happy Moves
Book 6 — Our Wonderful Minds
Book 7 — When Home Hurts
Book 8 — When My Body Talks
Book 9 — Dictionary of Feelings
My Feelings Journal
Children’s BooksAuthor StoryReading AloudEarly YearsEmotional LiteracyPSHEBedtime Stories🌿
Heide Cussell
Author of The Garden of Feelings series — somatic emotional literacy books for children aged 3 to 8. Written for home, classroom, and therapeutic use. Aligned with PSHE, trauma-informed practice, and ELSA support.