Previous research showed that urban, educated Costa Rican mother–child dyads discuss emotions more frequently during booksharing than German dyads. This study further explored this difference by analyzing the use of specific types of emotional terms in booksharing conversations between mothers and their 4-year-old children in Costa Rica and Germany (n = 26 per group). Findings revealed that both groups referred to emotional states, emotional behaviors, and emotional-evaluative references similarly, reflecting a shared emphasis on psychological autonomy. However, only Costa Rican dyads frequently incorporated moral appraisals, specifying judgments about emotion regulation and expression of the characters in the book, highlighting the cultural value of hierarchical-relatedness alongside autonomy. These findings suggest that emotion talk during booksharing reflects distinct cultural models, with Costa Rican dyads integrating both autonomy and relatedness cultural values and German dyads focusing primarily on autonomy.