Tough Guys Have Feelings Too

I love Keith Negley's picture books, and this one is no exception. Like My Dad Used to Be So Cool, the message is conveyed with great subtlety and effectiveness; when one finally sees that the characters depicted are all toys in a little boy's room, and that the whole story was likely being told to the boy by the dad in order to help him process his own feelings, it's a heartwarming moment of realization. A storytime powerhouse, I think.

Tough guys have feelings too, the narrator of this brightly-illustrated picture-book informs us, going on to describe and depict a number of different tough guy "types," from ninjas to cowboys, superheroes to bikers. Each two-page spread features one such tough guy expressing grief, frustration or discouragement...

Author/illustrator Keith Negley, who also produced the subsequent My Dad Used To Be So Cool, made his picture-book debut here, with Tough Guys Have Feelings Too. I was eager to pick this up, given how much I enjoyed that other book, but somehow I wasn't quite as impressed. Perhaps because it was missing that sense of dual meaning that the other book had, or its sly sense of humor, this one wasn't as entertaining. I appreciated show more the constructive exploration of masculinity here, and the message that "tough guys" (AKA men and boys) can also experience and express sadness, but somehow the title led me to expect a wider array of emotions. Leaving that aside, this was still an engaging book, one that could be used to launch a discussion about how to deal with and express negative feelings. Like My Dad Used To Be So Cool, the artwork here is colorful and bright, with a bold, graphic style that is very engaging. Recommended to anyone looking for children's stories that interrogate the expression of masculinity in our culture. show less

"A boldly illustrated picture book read-aloud about how everyone gets sad—ninjas, wrestlers, knights, superheroes, everyone . . . even daddies have emotions!

Did you know wrestlers have feelings? And knights. Even superheroes and ninjas feel sad sometimes. In fact everyone has feelings—especially dads who love their children!

Children will love recognizing their feelings in Keith Negley's bold illustrations which accompany a fun-to-read-aloud narrative.

Parents can joyfully engage with children in a lighthearted discussion about emotions and how they affect us all!" www.amazon.com

"The title says it all.

These tough guys are rendered in simple lines and shapes and colored in black and white, red, blue, and yellow, but they represent a show more broad range of virility. There are a lucha libre wrestler, two ninjas, a knight, a cowboy, and more stereotypically manly men. These tough guys are shown at emotional and sometimes scary moments: the astronaut floating in space holding a photograph of his wife and child; the superhero eating his lunch alone atop a building; the tattooed biker weeping over a dead squirrel in the road. Everyone has feelings, says the text—well, almost everyone, as the robot clipping and smashing flowers with a grim expression on its metal face indicates. In the end, it is all about the father and son, curled up together on the bed, reading together. The front endpapers show the boy in all of these guises, while the back endpapers show him in each role with his dad. The figures have varying skin tones, and while in some contexts “guys” is not a gender-specific term, everyone here reads as male, which is probably OK and no doubt intended.

Though it doesn’t exactly topple stereotypes or delve deep into questions of gender identity, Negley’s debut is nonetheless sincere. (Picture book. 4-7)" www.kirkusreviews.com show less

Illustrations screamed 'Caldecott' to me.
A very specific message, focused entirely on boys interested in being tough & macho.

Even though it included astronauts etc., the heros that girls can be, too, it will only interest moms and sisters in a secondhand way. Gentle guys might learn something about tough guys from it, I suppose.

And the reasons that the guys cried were sometimes spelled out, sometimes not, which made for a inconsistency which marred it.

Still, well-done for what it is, and the theme is important, so I both recommend and predict success for it. And I'll consider more by the author.

Oh, and don't miss the endpapers!

loved this one! all about toxic masculinity and how men are allowed to have emotions. from ninjas to astronauts to pirates, all these characters experience big emotions. they cry, they feel frustration, they hang their heads.

big feels! i enjoyed this one a lot and would love to read it with a kiddo to see what discussion commences.

I think it's important for kids to read about and validate male emotions. This book is much better for younger kids though, especially boys, who are learning about emotions, recognizing them, and coping. The illustrations far outweigh the text and overall message that winds up being conveyed. I am critical of the sparsity of text, the oversimplification of certain parts, and how it takes away from some of the significance of the message. While the book is attempting to deconstruct stereotypical portrayals of masculinity, the only different emotion shown is sadness. Guys can have a range of emotions, that's the point. If all the "big tough guys" (which I'm sorry they are still stereotypical because it should also show how the word tough show more can be used for more than bikers and superheroes) are just sad, why can't they be described in slightly more sophisticated terms? Feelings could include others things as well- otherwise the book should be titled "Tough guys cry too". Page to page text feels choppy. I think kids can handle more complex terms even at young ages as long as we guide them. This text is overly simple and almost feels patronizing in its plainness. The more I thought I about it the more displeased I am with the book. The illustrations and need for more books that do attempt to validate male emotions is the only reason it even gets 3 stars from me. It is a good start for this kind of book but I think we can do better than this. show less

This book shows us that knights, astronaunts, wrestlers, and bikers all share one thing: they get upset too! And that's ok!
This book was an incredibly quick read (took me two minutes) but has a very important message: Men are allowed to have feelings and express them.