Conn. (WTNH) — There are children’s books about all kinds of topics. This one is helping kids get rid of anxiety. It’s called “Sometimes I Grumble Squish.”

Author Rachel Vail, who writes for elementary age kids, tweens, and teens, has written more than 40 books.

“I love stories,” Vail said. “I love listening to them. I love hearing them. I love making them up. And I love telling them. So I guess that’s how I became an author. I love stories and I love sentences.”

Vail explained that she started writing at age 22 about the most intense moments in life as an adolescent. She said that it’s “horribly embarassing” and “funny and empowering in a way” to grow up in front of everyone.

She got the name of the book because “when having big feelings, we grumble, squish them down.”

“I wanted to talk about that feeling, especially of rage, frustration, feelings that a lot of us who want very much to be a pleasure don’t allow ourselves to fully feel,” Vail said. “And I actually was writing it in the very beginning of the pandemic when I was feeling a lot of fear and a lot of worry and a lot of rage, honestly, about what was going on.”

She said a lot of people, who deal with these feelings, “grumble squish them down,” and she realized she was doing this as well.

See the full interview on Nyberg in the video above.

Learn more about Vail’s book here.