When Sophie Gets Angry...really, Really Angry [Hardcover]

Molly Bang (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1999 | Age Range: 4 - 8 years

Sophie gets mad, climbs a tree to calm down, and is soon ready to come home to her loving family. "The text is...brief, for it is Bang's double-page illustrations, vibrating with saturated colors, that reveal the drama of the child's emotions." - School Library Journal, starred review. "Bang's strong, nonproscriptive acknowledgment of a feeling most children will recognize will be welcomed." - Booklist, starred review

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Raw zigzags of color convey a girl's rage in this compassionate volume, which proposes a cure for anger. Sophie's temper flares when her sister demands a turn playing with a favorite stuffed gorilla. Matters worsen when Sophie's mother passes judgment ("It is her turn now, Sophie") and Sophie trips over a toy truck in the resulting tug-of-war. Infernal shades of orange, yellow and red liken Sophie to a shuddering volcano; a gray cat with jagged fur wisely gets out of her way. With the "PABAM!" of a slammed door, the girl races outside. "She runs and runs and runs until she can't run anymore. Then, for a little while, she cries." Gradually, a calmer Sophie begins noticing birds and ferns. When she returns home, relaxed again, her sister has abandoned the gorilla in favor of a tabletop puzzle. With minimal text, Bang (Common Ground; Ten, Nine Eight) gives a realistic account of embattled siblings and prescribes self-imposed solitude. Edgy illustrations with roilingly patterned foreground shapes and looming, dark backgrounds convey Sophie's inner violence; in particular, a quiet image of a ghostly gray beech against a midnight-blue sky is reminiscent of Van Gogh's Japanese-print-inspired scenes. Bang's evocatively illustrated book suggests no quick fixes; she treats childhood emotions with respect. Ages 2-7.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 2-Sophie is playing with her stuffed gorilla when her sister wrests it from her, knocking her to the floor. When their mother agrees that it is her sister's turn to play with the toy, Sophie becomes so angry that "She wants to smash the world to smithereens." She kicks, screams, and eventually runs into the woods where she climbs a huge beech tree, looks out over the water, and is comforted by the "wide world." Calm, she returns home ready to participate in family life. The text is appropriately brief, for it is Bang's double-page illustrations, vibrating with saturated colors, that reveal the drama of the child's emotions. Floorboards slant diagonally across two pages, echoing the agitation of the siblings as they engage in a tug of war. A close-up of Sophie's face with blue eyes blazing and pigtails flying is set against a fire-red background. Bang gives the ranting girl a huge red shadow. On the next spread, Sophie releases a "ROAR" so enormous that she seems to shrink off the page. The trees, outlined in bright red, mimic the girl's anger, then bow down as she passes by stooped and weeping, and finally sport bright-green outlines as she returns home cheered and hopeful. Sophie, like a missing piece, rejoins her family as the puzzle they are working on is completed. Pair this excellent story with Dorothea Lachner's Andrew's Angry Words (North-South, 1995).
Marianne Saccardi, Norwalk Community-Technical College, CT
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 4 - 8 years
  
• Hardcover: 31 pages
• Publisher: Blue Sky Press; First Edition edition (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0590189794
• ISBN-13: 978-0590189798
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 9.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #75,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Molly Bang is an award winning children's book illustrator and author. Her
works include 3 Caldecott Honor Books: Ten, Nine, Eight, The Grey Lady and the
Strawberry Snatcher, and When Sophie Gets Angry - Really, Really Angry, which
also won a Jane Addams Honor Award and the Arbuthnot Award. The Paper Crane
won the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award in 1987; Goose won the School of Library
Journal Best Book of 1996 and another work, Common Ground: The Water, Earth,
and Air We Share, won the prestigious Giverny Book Award in 1998 for the best
children's science picture book. Her latest book, My Light, is an ALA Notable
book.

Her only work for adults is Picture This, which shows how an understanding of
the most basic principles enable a person to build powerful pictures. It is
used by art and graphic departments in colleges around the country.

Bang received her bachelor degree from Wellesley in French, and Masters in
Far Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona and at Harvard. She has also
worked as a reporter; as an educator for public health projects in Bangladesh
and in Mali, West Africa, incorporating information on maternal and child
health into stories; and as a teacher in colleges.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

90 of 91 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding book that helps to validate children's feelings November 7, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

This is one of our absolute favorite books. I have given it as a gift to many friends upon the birth of a sibling or a sad family event such as parental separation. It's so important for children to know that anger itself is OK and that there are appropriate ways to defuse it that don't hurt others. Even as adults we can use the visually compelling reminders that physical exertion, time alone and being in nature can help to soothe angry or hurt feelings. As for the fact that Sophie runs out of the house, I have only two comments: (1) children, especially small ones, are probably better able than adults to grasp metaphor (my children have read this book hundreds of times and never attempted to leave the house alone); (2) Sophie is a big girl living in a safe seaside area and is apparently quite well able to handle leaving the house alone. We should all be so lucky. Completely agree with one reviewer's observation that the change in colors in the book, particularly in the outlines of trees and figures, is a wonderful way of reinforcing the message that feelings can change and become manageable. One of my all-time favorites!

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars When Sophie Gets Angry-Really, Really Angry� December 1, 2000

A Kid's Review

Format:Hardcover

When Sophie Gets Angry-Really Really Angry... by Molly Bang, is a picture book about a little girl named Sophie who becomes angry with her sister for trying to play with the stuffed gorilla that she wants to play with. When Sophie gets angry at her sister, she runs away from her house and climbs a big beech tree where she watches the waves and lets the calm breeze comfort her. When she feels better she climbs down and goes happily back home. The illustrations in this book are drawn in a way as to reflect her mood at that time. They are not drawn with fine lines and a lot of detail. They have wide outlines and vibrant color. In a way, they look as if they were made by a child using crayons or finger paints. They start out, before Sophie becomes angry, with more calm colors such as green. When she begins to get mad at her sister the background changes from green to hot pink and when she is at the peak of her anger, the background changes to bright red to symbolize her anger. Sophie's anger also changes the sizes, proportions, and perspective of the pictures. The book starts off showing Sophie, her sister, the cat, and a few things on the floor and in the background. Then as her anger grows the pictures get closer in and shows more of her face. One of the pictures when she is most angry has a red background and her face takes up two whole pages. The size of the picture emphasizes how big and powerful her anger has made her feel. When Sophie is stomping around her house in a fit of anger, the author helps the reader imagine the noise she is making by writing different sounds on the page as she is making them. She doesn't just type them in, but she draws them and tries to incorporate them into the picture. One illustration shows Sophie roaring with anger. Instead of just writing that she roared with anger, there is a picture of little Sophie standing in the corner of the page and the word "roar" coming out of her mouth in the form of flames going across the entire page. As Sophie is running through the woods to the beech tree, many of the trees are drawn diagonally to show Sophie's unstable mood. As she is running through the woods the colors and the perspective of the illustrations gradually change. The colors go from bright angry red back to more calm colors. In the end when Sophie is sitting on the beech tree the sky is bright blue and Sophie is small again compared to the other things in the picture. Overall this book is great to read to children. The illustrations on their own can tell the story. This book can also be useful in helping children understand how certain colors can make them have a certain feeling toward something. Just the illustrations alone in this book make it worthwhile to read.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for helping young children process anger January 22, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

My 3-year-old is a very sensitive little girl who is scared of her own anger and scared when my 5-year-old throws tantrums. She absolutely loves Sophie, and loves seeing how it is possible that Sophie can get angry and then calm down and come back, and the family still loves her, she's still okay, and she can go back to being happy again. We received this for Christmas, and my daughter has made us read it to her every single night. She tells me she wishes she had a tree to run to. I think it's a wonderful book, and I think that children should be free to express the full range of emotions, including anger. This book certainly makes it seem normal and reassures children that it's okay to be angry sometimes.