One day at school, Faye has a tough time with her teacher and ends up getting kicked out of class. Feeling completely misunderstood and frustrated, she sits with her grandma at the park, unable to talk about what happened. Granny Yaya steps in to help her navigate the big feelings, teaching Faye that emotions can be understood through the magic of RAIN.
This delightful picture book guides readers through Tara Brach’s 21st-century version of the Buddhist meditation technique, RAIN, while also introducing basic principles of IFS (Internal Family Systems) parts work. Using simple and enjoyable language, children (and their grown-ups) can explore this method and easily apply it in their own lives.
As a kindergarden director, I see children every day struggle with their emotions…RAIN is truly magical, and I’m so glad that there is now a book to guide other caregivers, parents, and teachers through this experience.
Yann Guyomard
Early Childhood Educator and Kindergarten Director, Berlin
Our Journey
Years ago, I discovered Tara Brach’s RAIN meditation, and it changed my life. Through this gentle, step-by-step practice, I learned how to move through challenging emotions without suppressing, judging, or ignoring them. Each time I practiced RAIN, it deepened my understanding of myself and even more profoundly, it helped me connect to my daughter’s emotional world.
Then, during the pandemic, I went searching for a children’s book about RAIN to read with my daughter and was astonished to find that it didn’t exist. So I called my best friend and said, “I guess we have to make it ourselves, I’ll write it and you’ll have to illustrate it.”
That spontaneous call became the beginning of an extraordinary creative journey. There were ups and downs, moments of doubt, even times when the book nearly went out into the world without these very illustrations-a heartbreaking thought. But something deep inside reminded us how meaningful this story was. We decided to trust its own rhythm, to let it unfold like rain itself: patient, cleansing, alive.
Three stories later, after countless magical coincidences, we found ourselves back at the beginning with the original title, the original partnership, and a friendship seven times stronger.
We shared soul-searching conversations to find the right words, and unforgettable moments like sitting in a friend’s garden by a lake under a cloudy sky, imagining how to paint emotions, and feeling goosebumps as we dreamed.
People warned us that friends shouldn’t work together. We were afraid they might be right. But now we know: this book has only brought us closer and many more stories are already bubbling inside us.
The Co-Creators
Pinelopi Sioni
Author
Pinelopi Sioni is an embodiment guide of yoga, meditation, and the Alexander Technique, integrating trauma-informed principles and polyvagal theory into her work. In her many years of practice, she has guided countless groups in connecting with their bodies, emotions, and deeply-held beliefs. She grounds her work in Ahimsa, or non-violence, and the concept of allowing what is present to simply be. She believes that transformation happens through allowing, compassion, understanding, and seeing. Pinelopi rejects the notions of pushing through pain, forcefully changing oneself, or labeling any emotion as “bad.” She views emotions as messengers that, once welcomed and listened to, naturally move on to their next destination.
In 2013, she welcomed a wonderful daughter into her life. Since then, she has been exploring ways to connect the intricate emotional worlds of children with the beauty of meditation. To her surprise, she discovered that she could effectively use a simplified version of RAIN with her daughter as early as age three when guiding her through the technique. Her dream is to help people of all ages connect with and express their emotions more easily, fostering a world with less unresolved grief and pain.
Avital Yomdin
Illustrator
Avital Yomdin is a multidisciplinary artist whose creative journey has spanned theater design, street art, sculpture, comics and installation, always with drawing at the heart of her work. With a passion for visual storytelling, Avital brings her diverse artistic background into the world of children’s illustration, crafting vibrant and imaginative scenes that captivate young minds. Her work combines playful humor with a talent for creating clear, simple visual representations of complex emotions, inviting readers into colorful, engaging worlds where stories come alive and emotions are felt in every brush stroke.
With deep gratitude for the trust we found in each other, for believing in the book’s own life and rhythm, for all the hearts and hands that helped it along the way, and for the faith that the world would be ready to receive it with open arms.
Pinelopi and Avital
Cheers to our book reaching the world!