The Ingredients, the Emotions, and the Making of:
When Your Cookie Crumbles
By: Rachel Howard
My name is Rachel Howard, and I am the author and illustrator of the nonfiction children’s picture book When Your Cookie Crumbles. I was born and raised in Windsor, Ontario and am currently residing in Gig Harbor, WA. In 2006, I graduated from the University of Windsor with my BA in English, and I had a deep desire to travel and spend time abroad. I accepted a teaching position in Seoul, South Korea, and spent three years teaching ESL to children and adults. During those three years, I took advantage of my geographical situation and spent time in Cambodia, Japan, Laos, and Thailand. I moved to the United States in 2009 and continue to enjoy the Pacific Northwest lifestyle. When Your Cookie Crumbles is my first children’s Picture Book. My daughter was my inspiration in writing this book as she is a sensitive child who struggles with anxiety. It was imperative for me to address the mental health concerns associated with anxiety. All too often, sensitive children become stigmatized and made to feel like there is something wrong with them. This became apparent when my daughter was six years old and, in the first grade.
Our daughter
The specific type of anxiety that our daughter was struggling with at that time was separation anxiety. The public school system versus the private preschool academy that my children attended were quite different. Not to mention, the full days of academia driven school was a challenging transition for our daughter. I saw her struggling and more specifically, I saw her joy factor become noticeably hindered. I knew that I had to find a way to encourage her that everything she was feeling was natural, and okay. But also, to reassure her that however emotional she was on a given day, that she had people she could trust to come undone in front of. I needed our daughter to know that no matter what she was feeling, she could be her true authentic self at home with us, her family.
Baking together
Baking and cooking are extremely important traditions in our household. My daughter and I had a little routine of sorts, baking chocolate chip cookies together. The notion that the emotions are as important to a child’s make-up paralleled to the vitality of an ingredient to a recipe, just clicked. Once I had the metaphor, the book came to life relatively quickly. It was necessary that our daughter felt reassured that her emotions are a key element to what makes her unique. And that there are no wrong emotions. I also wanted other children to feel reassured, because I knew that this stigmatization was not specific to just our daughter. Regardless of race, gender, or religion, the theme of big emotions is something that all children can relate to. Facilitating a dialogue about tough emotions was part one. The final message of the book was that all children need to be able to identify the people in their lives that they can count on to be themselves around. So that if they are crumbling, they know who their trusted adults are and where they can crumble free of judgement.
Talking about emotions
Sometimes, despite our best intentions and efforts, it is difficult to get a child to discuss what is bothering them or what happened that has made them angry. The emotion of anger can be such a daunting emotion. For whatever reason, where anger lives, shame and embarrassment are never that far behind. It is imperative for us as adults to break down those constructs of shame and embarrassment associated with anger, for our children’s sake but also for the sake of our society. While anger is a natural human emotion it becomes problematic in that it oftentimes leads to impulsivity and reactivity. We must teach our children healthy coping techniques that they can rely on when they are feeling overwhelmed and angry. In doing so, we are setting them up for success now, but also into their adulthood.
Prior to the pandemic, I had been a guest author at several schools and spoken to a variety of classrooms. The younger children loved to talk about the cookies and engage about why the cookie is so small on one page, and big on the other. The older children are able to understand the metaphor and imagery relatively easily. With both groups, the book is the venue that facilitates the dialogue about emotions. Regardless of the different age groups, when I pose the question “Do any of you remember an instance when you felt small? And what helped to make you feel big again?” the hands fly up. The majority of the children want an opportunity to be heard and to share their experience aloud. The same can be said when it is time to identify who their trusted bakers are. It is key during this portion of a in-person event to point out that it can be a variety of people, but also, even a beloved pet. Families and situations are diverse and unique, and as an author of a social emotional learning book, I must always be sensitive to those differences.
The pandemic
Since the Pandemic, When Your Cookie Crumbles has been featured on several online social/emotional resource sites. Some include, Too Cool for School, Coping Skills for Kids, 253 Parents Get Resourceful, etc. It is also featured on the largest non-profit children’s literacy organization site Reading is Fundamental (RIF.org) www.rif.org/literacy-central/book/when-your-cookie-crumbles. Notably, RIF.org also created two online activities associated with the book, a word search and a memory match game, that are available for free on the website.
Most recently in 2021, I was a guest on ABC’s KATU Portland Live Afternoon News (https://katu.com/afternoon-live/books-authors/when-your-cookie-crumbles), where I was interviewed about the book and the subject of big emotions amongst children. I also decided to post a free YouTube Read Aloud of the book (https://youtu.be/K6k_9pYsKdM) because I feel that now more than ever, we need to reassure our children that the emotions they are experiencing are not only natural but that it is okay to feel overwhelmed, sad, and angry.
The mental health implications associated with the Pandemic are crucial. Our children have shown how adaptable and resilient they are. Nonetheless, they deserve acknowledgement and comfort during these difficult times. Please feel free to follow me on Instagram at @rae_chelleh and to check out my website at www.whenyourcookiecrumbles.com. The book has been endorsed by several educators, specialists, interventionists, and a pediatrician from Tacoma, WA. All of the links, samples of the artwork, and endorsements can be easily navigated from the website directly. You can also view the many reviews on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca. As an added bonus, if you have Kindle Unlimited, the e-book is available for free to download. Below are some pictures of some happy readers/bakers. Enjoy!
3 thoughts on “The Ingredients, the Emotions, and the Making of: When your cookie Crumbles”
This book sounds excellent. I love that it doesn’t minimize how big these feelings are for kids, and that it really validates their experiences. I also love how relatable the metaphor is! Thank you for sharing the backstory of this book!
This looks like such a good book! We are always looking for books to talk about feelings and emotions and we also love cookies lol
This book sounds amazing. I definitely want to get it for my daughter. Letting her know her feelings matter and are important, means so much to me.
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