War Horse

"I include this because it is an emotional story of love, resilience and meaning. It’s important that when we talk about happiness we don’t make the mistake of expecting life to always be perfect. All of us will experience difficulties, losses and challenges and the uncomfortable emotions that come with those are part of life. The science of wellbeing and building our happiness skills necessarily helps to build our ability to deal with tough times and bounce back too. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter This is also a favourite book of my eldest nephew, Alex. We went to see the play together and I bought him an illustrated version one Christmas which he took to a Show-and-Tell lesson when he was at primary school. The teacher liked it so she read it to the whole class during story time, and it was lovely to see his pride when he told me this! Introducing my nephews to new ideas, experiences and new worlds is something I personally find highly meaningful. I don’t want to give the impression that we should focus on happiness to the exclusion of other experiences. However, the psychology of wellbeing can help us recognise and get through the tough times. “Reading can teach you how to think around a situation, it can teach courage and humour” War Horse is a pretty hard-hitting story which puts its readers in touch with a breadth and depth of emotions. Life has ups and downs and it is normal and appropriate to feel anger, sadness and fear in response. That is important for children to realise. Research shows it’s helpful to have words for a wide range of emotions. The richer a child’s lexicon of emotions, the easier it is for them to understand specifically what they are experiencing, communicate it effectively and it seems to help them manage their emotion better too. Reading about other people (and animals) experiencing difficulties also helps us feel and develop empathy and compassion, which are so vitally important in terms of societal and our own wellbeing. If we go through difficulties, there is reassurance in knowing others have experienced similar times too, that it’s not just us, which can lead to feeling isolated and alone."