Written by Yuna Moriyama, Creator of Tilly's Falling Stars

 I'm a mother who learned, through raising children with powerful emotions, to listen differently, to look beneath the surface, and to understand the language of feelings long before a child can name them.

 The spark for Falling Stars came from my daughter. She believed falling stars could carry wishes and once gave a friend his own falling star so his birthday wish would come true. That moment stayed with me. It's where Tilly began.

 As my children grew, I began to understand how much emotions shape us and how important it is to see them clearly. We talked about feelings often and tried to trace where they came from.  Along the way, Power vs. Force book introduced an idea that changed everything for me: emotions carry energy that influences our health, choices, and relationships. It gave me language for something I'd observed for years. Even adults often struggle to name what they feel.

 Yet we ask children to learn emotional vocabulary that we were never given. Many children's books explain feelings in broad strokes, but very few explore the meaningful layers within each one.

 That's why I created this series. Each book explores a core emotion and two of its deeper shades, showing through story how those feelings are born, how they unfold, and how we can understand them in ourselves and others. The goal is not to simplify emotions, but to illuminate them.

 I grew up on Studio Ghibli, where a child's feelings are big enough to change the weather. On García Márquez and Murakami, where emotions take visible form: butterflies, rain, dreams that bleed into waking life. I wanted to create something like that for children. A world where feelings become things you can see and name. Brené Brown gave me language for the hard emotions families tend to avoid. And Junie B. Jones proved that kids can handle honesty. They don't need things softened. They need us to trust them.

These books are for them. And in many ways, they are for us too.