Calm: A Choose Your Own Attitude Book

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Author(s)

Gail Hayes

Co-Authors / Illustrators

Helen Flook

Publisher Name

Flowerpot Press

Genre(s)

Age Range

Release Date

October 14, 2025

ISBN13

978-1486731589

ISBN10 or ASIN

In life, sometimes things don’t go our way, but being able to stay calm in stressful or unexpected situations is like a superpower! It helps us think straight. It helps us keep things in perspective. It can even help us to laugh and move on. In this choose-your-own-adventure-style book, readers are asked to help four kids just like them decide what to do in everyday situations. Take a step further with discussion questions and a feelings chart included in the back of the book.

• Meet Evelyn who wonders if the new girl in school is here to steal all her best friends. Help her decide whether to get upset or stay calm and learn a little more about the newest student in her school.

• Help William tackle a disappointing last-minute change of plans from a day at the waterpark to a day home babysitting his little brother.

• Point Harper in the right direction when it comes to tackling her mile-long to-do list.

• Jump into Logan’s most embarrassing moment ever and help him decide whether to play it cool or lose his cool!

About the Choose Your Own Attitude series: There are many things in life that we can’t control. We cannot decide much of what happens to us; however, we can decide how we react. That is where the Choose Your Own Attitude books can help. Using techniques author Gail Hayes, M.A. has developed through her work as a counselor, this series explores the choices we make when dealing with everyday situations that may make it hard for us to find gratitude and the impact those choices have on how we think and feel.

Editor review

1 review

Finding the Calm Within

January 11, 2026 (Updated: June 26, 2026)

Overall rating

4.3

Plot

5.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

“Calm” by Gail Hayes is an interesting book that allows readers to experience a “choose your own adventure” type story. Everyone has to deal with the thoughts in their heads, and sometimes those thoughts are not always the easiest to handle. Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Keeping things in perspective, and dealing with the outcomes of our choices in positive, productive ways is part of what makes us unique as humans. We get to determine the best course of action for the issues that we’re dealing with, and that can sometimes be a harder task than we might imagine.

Feeling calm or feeling stressed out are two of the choices for how someone can feel. This book says that these choices represent two different mindsets, and the book calls these Bubble Thinking or Slug Thinking. Gail Hayes makes it so that readers can choose their own attitudes (rather than adventures) and decide if they will do Bubble Thinking or Slug Thinking to move forward from the issue at hand. Bubble Thinking brings about relaxation and calming tendencies much quicker than Slug Thinking, which creates stressful thoughts that are much harder to avoid.

Whether trying to decide how one feels when jealous, disappointed, overwhelmed, or embarrassed, there are a number of stories included in this book to help readers determine the best thought process to move forward. The back matter of the book also includes additional discussion questions about each individual story that is included to help delve further into the thoughts that might make someone feel those original feelings in the first place. There is also an emotion chart to help guide readers to a better understanding of their feelings. The stories in this book will be a useful guide for young readers and older readers alike as they try to find the calm within themselves.

Good Points

Whether trying to decide how one feels when jealous, disappointed, overwhelmed, or embarrassed, there are a number of stories included in this book to help readers determine the best thought process to move forward. The stories will be a useful guide for young readers and older readers alike as they try to find the calm within themselves.