Grump Groan Growl

by bell hooks, Chris Raschka (Illustrator)

Overview

From legendary author and critic bell hooks and multi-Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka comes a fresh look at bad moods, perfect for fans of Grumpy Monkey and The Pout Pout Fish.


Here's a positive way to face our bad, grumpy, and wild moods! Acclaimed writer bell hooks offers a vision of calm with a soothingly rhythmic text, while award-winning artist Chris Raschka's vibrant art adds a healthy dose of compassion and humor, reminding readers that sometimes you just have to go inside and let it slide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781368007825
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	11/14/2017
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

A world-renowned cultural critic, feminist theorist, and intellectual, bell hooks is a distinguished author and professor of English. She has written several acclaimed children's books including Be Boy Buzz, Skin Again, and Happy to be Nappy, all illustrated by Chris Raschka.


Chris Raschka is the Caldecott-Award-winning illustrator of The Hello Goodbye Window and A Ball for Daisy. He also received a Caldecott Honor for Yo! Yes? and has written and illustrated numerous books for children, including several titles by bell hooks: Happy to be Nappy, Skin Again, and Be Boy Buzz. A 2012 nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award, he lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

* "[F]ew picture books can match the visceral punch of this one's opening, which does for bad moods what Sendak's wild rumpus sequence did for bedtime naughtiness."
—Booklist, starred review


* "With its intensity and understanding, this bad-mood book rivals Jules Feiffer's I'm Not Bobby! and Molly Bang's When Sophie Gets Angry, Really, Really Angry..."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review


"[A] deceptively simple picture book by masters of that form... Its power goes straight to the visceral in a way that will resonate for a long, long time."
—Kirkus Reviews


"Expressionistic art and economical poetry combine smoothly to create an inspiring model of self-control... While abstract and symbolic, this book has a healthful and hopeful message that readers will connect with emotionally."
—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

Hooks and Raschka (Be Boy Buzz; Skin Again) charge this temperamental book with few words but ample emotion. The alliterative title alone demands a loud delivery, and each of the three key words gets a noisy spread all to itself ("Grump-/ Groan-/ Growl/ Bad mood on the prowl"). Raschka, working in loose India ink over airy, multicolored watercolor wash, scrawls a short-legged, leonine monster and its alter ego, an angry curly-haired child. The creature recalls one of Sendak's Wild Things, albeit roughly sketched with a thick brush. A zigzag blue line of teeth superimposed across the glowering monster's dark mouth in several images implies a temporary sharpness, but not permanent antagonism. Similarly, hooks's words acknowledge how hard it is to avoid negativity ("Can't stand outside/ Can't hide"). At the conclusion, the words "Just go inside," recommend a time-out for easing out of the mood. On the closing page, "Just let it slide," the S of "slide" becomes a chair where the once-belligerent child lounges and his inner monster naps beneath (not gone, but relaxed). With its intensity and understanding, this bad-mood book rivals Jules Feiffer's I'm Not Bobby! and Molly Bang's When Sophie Gets Angry-Really, Really Angry.... Ages 3-up. (Apr.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

PreS-Gr 2- Expressionistic art and economical poetry combine smoothly to create an inspiring model of self-control. A young gender-neutral child with curly hair is in a BAD MOOD. An alter-ego beast grumps, groans, and growls, trying in vain to hide or escape from its own feelings. Only when the child/beast faces and accepts the feelings can the bad mood dissipate. It is significant that the temperamental beast is not portrayed as something bad to be defeated; as the child makes a conscious effort to chill, the bad-mood beast is calmed and, in the final scene, sleeps companionably by the child's side. Many "anger management" picture books advise letting it all out by running or screaming. This one is different; "Just go inside/Just let it slide," it says, modeling a more internal form of comfort. It's a kind of variation on Where the Wild Things Are -Max imagined temporarily becoming a Wild Thing, while this child embraces the constant beast within and calms it through love and acceptance. Thick, almost tactile lines of paint are slathered onto the pages with gusto, capturing a feeling of movement and strong emotion. Hand-painted lettering is incorporated into the illustrations so that words and images interact, as in the final "let it slide" where the S becomes a seat for the relaxed child. While abstract and symbolic, this book has a healthful and hopeful message that readers will connect with emotionally.-Heidi Estrin, Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel, Boca Raton, FL

Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

"GRUMP / GROAN / GROWL / BAD MOOD / on the prowl." This deceptively simple picture book by masters of that form encourages readers to overcome their funks by putting them "inside" and letting them "slide." Raschka's broad ink strokes and splashy watercolors depict a curly-haired moppet and a personified bad mood, in the form of a similarly coiffed beast with pointy triangle teeth and a feline tail and claws-a Wild Thing as if drawn by a child. Colors modulate from heated yellows and oranges to cool blues and greens as the child learns to accommodate his monster mood, and the thick lines of the hand-lettered text form pictorial elements around which child and bad mood engage in a highly choreographed dance. While not as narrative as Sendak's masterpiece, this offering's emotional punch comes from the same source, young children's fear of their own powerful feelings. The metaphor here may immediately elude its literal-minded audience, but like its predecessor, its power goes straight to the viscera in a way that will resonate for a long, long time. (Picture book. 3-5)

Kirkus Reviews