When Sohie Gets Angry- Really, Really Angry... written and illustrated by Molly Bang

Bang, Molly. When Sopie Gets Angry-Really, Really Angry… New York: Scholastic, 1999

Every child has to learn the life’s lesson of how to handle and deal with anger. The realistic fiction picture book in the third person point of view, When Sophie Gets Angry – Really, Really Angry…, written and illustrated by Molly Bang, perfectly reveals Sophie’s remedy for her anger.

Sophie is happily playing when her sister snatches her toy gorilla away from her and boy does Sophie get angry! This book tells the story of her erupting anger and how she escapes to her happy place to relieve her anger. Her happy place is an old beech tree, which she climbs to see the sea and feel the breeze. She then feels happy again and returns home. This book discusses feelings and the lesson that it’s ok to get mad and that there are several ways to handle your anger. Raising the question : What do you do when you get angry?

The style is cartoon art, which looks as if the child who is telling the story created the illustrations as well, and the composition is gouache. Most importantly is Bangs vivid use of outlining colored lines to portray Sophie’s many emotions. When Sophie is happy and content the lines are yellow. As her mood changes to angry they darken to a red. These lines around her also mimic a volcano erupting or a mad monster. This concept flows throughout the entire book and plays an important role in the books illustrations and storyline.

Altogether a wonderful and fun read!