Molly Potter is a bestselling author of over 35 books for teachers, parents, carers, and children, focusing on a broad range of topics related to wellbeing.

Her Let’s Talk series, attractively illustrated by Sarah Jennings, is designed to open up meaningful conversations between children and adults. Covering important themes such as emotions, friendships, consent, and family relationships, each book encourages open discussion and helps children make sense of the world around them. Helpful notes for grown-ups are included, offering guidance on how to use the stories to prompt conversations and apply the techniques in everyday life.

Books that normalise and explore issues around emotional and mental wellbeing are more important than ever. According to a recent NHS England report, one in five children and young people aged 8–25 now have a probable mental health disorder—that's around five children in every classroom. Resources like the Let’s Talk series play a vital role in supporting children’s mental health from an early age.

Molly’s background includes many years of teaching in both mainstream and specialist schools, where she worked closely with children facing emotional and behavioural challenges—helping them build trust, develop self-esteem, and learn to regulate their emotions. She has also worked as a county advisor for PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic education), with a particular emphasis on RSE (Relationships and Sex Education), where she developed a strong passion for supporting children through life’s more complex issues.

Today, Molly continues to support children's wellbeing by writing teaching resources for a range of organisations, delivering training, speaking at events, and offering one-to-one support. Her work often focuses on emotional literacy and positive behaviour strategies.

Vibrant and engaging, Molly Potter’s books help children reflect on their behaviour, understand why they might act in certain ways, and consider more helpful alternatives—for themselves and those around them.

Q. For those new to your excellent Let's Talk series, can you tell us about the books.

A. My Let’s Talk series is a collection of picture books for young children, designed to support their social and emotional development and overall wellbeing. The books cover a wide range of topics, including naming and managing emotions, navigating friendships, maintaining positive mental health, understanding how families are formed, coping with common childhood worries, celebrating differences, why behaviour can be tricky, knowing about and respecting consent, understanding death, and learning about the birds and the bees.

The series offers children choices to explore, advice to consider, reassurance, questions to ponder, simple explanations, and a variety of scenarios to reflect on.

How did you initially become inspired to write the series?

As well as working as a teacher in both mainstream education and a pupil referral unit (PRU), I also served as a county advisor for personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE). PSHE and school ethos were always the aspects of education that interested me most, as I believe they have significant impact on children's ability to thrive - more than academic achievement alone. Several years ago, in my role as a PSHE advisor, I developed a homework resource designed solely to prompt meaningful conversations between children and their adults. This resource was incredibly well received—not just because of the topics it covered (e.g. peer influence, friendship problems etc.), but because children enjoyed discussing these ‘serious life matters’ with their parents/carers, and vice versa. Many parents and carers said they felt they were getting to know their children in ways they might not have otherwise. This resource, called Two Way Talk, planted the seed for the Let’s Talk series, as I saw the books could initiate similarly valuable conversations.

How do you hope your books will be used?

The Let’s Talk series is valuable in a number of ways. The content of the books can be used as part of a school’s PSHE curriculum, read by children and adults together or explored independently by children - even non-readers – as the illustrations convey much of the content. However the true value of these books lies not just in the content, it’s also the interactions between children and adults that they initiate. The focus with an adult on the social and emotional topics these books cover, promotes the importance of the topics for children, develops their understanding of it, creates quality time with an adult and often deepens an adult’s understanding of a child’s perspective. My books sometimes prompt children to deliver delightful and incredible insights such as: excitement can be as uncomfortable as fear, that none of us get things right all of the time and we shouldn’t expect to, that families aren’t perfect but they’re yours! Each of my books includes a wide range of topics for discussion, so they are best read a little at a time, giving children the space to ask questions and reflect. Once a child becomes familiar with the subject a book explores, they often return to it independently.

Do you feel that picture books are a good way to explore challenging subjects with children?

Parents and carers often tell me how helpful the books are in starting conversations they might not have known how to begin. The books gently guide both children and adults through key aspects of each topic. And because we typically read books side by side, with attention focused on the pages, this shared experience can help ease any awkwardness either the adult or child might feel when exploring more sensitive issues. I also feel that the pictures dilute the potential intensity of the topics – partly because they spread out the text but also because they offer a pause, humour and a bit of imaginative engagement.

The lively and attractive illustrations by Sarah Jennings make the books so attractive and help encourage discussion. How did you and Sarah work together?

Sarah is fantastic and her illustrations are always very appealing to children. When we're working on a new book, I usually provide detailed descriptions of the illustrations I believe will add value to the text. But because Sarah is so creative, when I give her a more general prompt—like ‘a chaotic bedroom’ or ‘a busy playground where all the children are having fun’—she always adds charming and often humorous details.

The Let's Talk series is aimed at the 5-8 age range. Do you have any plans to write for older children?

I would love to write books for older children on similar topics but I think many of the subjects I explore with younger children are already extensively covered for older children in the main - although I’d like to think I’d bring my own ‘Molly Potter’ style to any subject. I have worked with and written for all ages – including adults but writing non-fiction picture books for young children seems to be my current (and delightful) niche. I like to think I have some talent for making complex issues simple to understand which is key for this genre!

Scroll down for the full list of Let's Talk books, and find out more about each title. You'll find extracts available for most of the books below, plus a full review from LoveReadingKids.