Review by Booklist Review
Like Sendak's classic Where the Wild Things Are (1963), the latest collaboration between hooks and Raschka acknowledges the ferocity of childhood emotions and suggests the wisdom of allowing them to run their course. Here, however, the emotions themselves, anthropomorphized (in true Sendakian spirit) as a wild beast, take center stage rather than being digested within a larger imaginary narrative. The beginning is memorable: hooks' stomping refrain, Grump / Groan / Growl / Bad mood on the prowl, sprawls across the spreads in thickly brushed, freehand letters as the creature, caged within a thick, black frame, paces and roars. Unfortunately, Raschka's watercolors, although they nicely express the volatile, muddy soup of an irritable child's subconscious, don't do enough to elucidate the text's concluding, therapeutic ideas about taming the bad-mood beast ( just go inside, hooks suggests, but inside where?). Still, even if the book's message is sometimes too obscure, few 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.--Mattson, Jennifer Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Bold, expressionistic watercolors capture the misery of a child overtaken by negative emotions. The "bad mood" is depicted as a monster that eventually dissolves into a swirl of colors when the child is able to "just let those feelings be / just let them pass." Raschka's visualization of anger and frustration, all thick black outlines and inchoate shapes, is extremely effective. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
"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) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
