Sometimes I Grumblesquinch (A Big Feelings Book)

PreS-Gr 2--Self-described "really nice kid" Katie Honors always aims to please. Polite, well-behaved, and flexible, she earns compliments from her parents: "Katie is such a pleasure." The reality beneath this veneer of perfection, of course, is a range of emotions, positive and negative. Her toddler brother Chuck has a knack for provoking her in small ways that her mother and father either overlook or minimize with platitudes: "You don't mind, do you?" and "Chuck loves you!" Since her appearance as the protagonist of Vail's Sometimes I'm Bombaloo, Katie has learned to suppress her feelings by "grumblesquinching," her idiosyncratic term for bottling up anger and sadness inside. After her pent-up frustration finally explodes in the form of a tantrum, she fears that she has irreparably damaged her parents' opinion of her. To her relief, her mother responds not with judgment but with warm understanding--she is accepted, anger and all. Vail creates a strikingly honest portrait of family relationships, sensitively probing the all-too-common adult habit of using praise to avoid uncomfortable but necessary emotional dialogue. Yum's bright, expressive colored pencil drawings cleverly externalize the progression of Katie's emotional response: as she loses her composure, strands of her hair begin to float up into sinister tentacles, and the image on her shirt subtly shifts from a rainbow to a storm cloud. VERDICT This tender, insightful exploration of childhood emotion and respectful parenting is an important purchase for all collections.--Jonah Dragan

Praise for Sometimes I'm Bombaloo:

Emotions bubble over in this wise picture book about how a child deals with anger. Katie Honors is a self-described "really good kid," generally obedient, kind and conscientious. Heo's (Father's Rubber Shoes) highly patterned rnixed-media illustrations, alternately warm and perky, use vibrant backgrounds, blocks of color and carefully chosen images to depict Katie's emotional tornado. Memorable scenes include Katie seated against a stark black background during her time-out, and an up-close view of her in the throes of a Bombaloo moment. — Publishers Weekly

* A keen-eyed view on the evolution and eruption of a child's tantrum and its aftermath. Heo's...intensely colorful, gloriously outlandish illustrations are a perfect match for Vail's text. Changes in perspective, spot images strewn over the pages, and slashes of energy emanating from fists and face mirror Katie's turbulent emotions while their over-the-top quality diffuses some of the tension aroused by the tale. An honest and understanding appraisal of tantrums from the child's perspective. — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

* Vail gets right inside a kid's psyche, and Heo's inventive artwork catches the kaleidoscope of emotions found there in a book that is both realistic and funny. Kudos to Vail and Heo for making a scary subject manageable. — Booklist, starred review

Anger is the subject of this wonderfully illustrated and beautifully designed picture book. The subject and age of the character in this title bear a very close resemblance to those in Molly Bang's When Sophie Gets Angry-Really, Really Angry (Scholastic, 1999), yet they are different enough in voice and mode of resolution that most collections will want both. — School Library Journal