What Feelings Do When No One's Looking

In this Polish import, emotions take on physical form to express their various natures. Designed not so much to evoke feelings as to quiet them, the sparely detailed gray or pale-hued drawings and even sparer text create soothing visual and verbal rhythms as pages turn. Beginning with Curiosity, who "always climbs as high as possible--to the treetop, the roof, or the chimney," 31 emotions, depicted mostly as rotund, furry creatures with small ears and expressive faces, engage in some telling activity described in a brief sentence or two. Some connections aren't always obvious (readers may puzzle over "Love is an electrician," for instance, opposite a figure steadying an outsized light bulb), but most are clear, such as "Calm pets a dog," "Insecurities build cages," and "Anxiety juggles." (Zając effectively sharpens this last by putting the beleaguered juggler atop a wobbly unicycle.) Overall there is a subdued, even benign tone to the recitation that not even Hate, presented as a scowl