When Sophie Gets Angry-Really, Really Angry

by Molly Bang

Book Overview

Category: Feelings"Oh is Sophie ever angry now!"Everybody gets angry sometimes. For children, anger can be very upsetting. Parents, teachers, and children can talk about it. People do lots of different things when they get angry. In this Caldecott-honor book, kids will see what Sophie does when she gets angry. What do you do?"...Bang's double-page illustrations, vibrating with saturated colors, that reveal the drama of the child's emotions."-SLJ,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0439598451
• ISBN13: 9780439598453
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
• Length: 40 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 7.8" x 10.0"
• Age Range: 4 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

Good purchase

Pre schoolers enjoyed it

Quick fix

Apparantly someone else had the same idea as me of ordering this new book. The seller was great to let me know immediately and offer a super solution. My son loves the book and I appreciated the prompt and curteous service.

Pure Rage . . . Safely Vented

When a young child gets frustrated, uncontrolled rage often follows. How can a parent help? I suggest reading this book together and discussing it while your child is in a good mood. When Sophie Gets Angry was a Caldecott honoree for its remarkable illustrations in 2000. These illustrations combine the styles of Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Matisse in a vivid, bright, and effective way. The book uses the metaphor of a "volcano, ready to explode" very effectively. Geologists would point out that a volcano without vents will explode as the water in the cone turns to steam with no place to go. With vents, all you get is a cloud of steam and gentle lava flows. Ms. Bang uses three illustration techniques to maximum advantage. First, she colors the page with the emotion Sophie is feeling. Second, she turns Sophie's words into physical expressions within the metaphor. Third, she changes her composition to show the transition that Sophie feels as she moves from within herself into touch with the world around her again. My favorite two images in the book are when she first arrives at an old beech tree that she climbs into. The second has her sitting in the same tree while "the wide world comforts her."This is one of the ten best illustrated children's books it has been my pleasure to view. I come to this conclusion based on the excellence of the style, the appropriate use of color, the fit with the story, and superb compositions. The quality is uniformly high in all these dimensions. The story itself deals with a typical cause of childhood rage -- being asked to share when a child doesn't want to. Mom takes Sophie's sister's side, and then Sophie falls over a truck . . . hurting herself. That fans the flames! "She wants to smash the world to smithereens." "She roars a red, red roar." Then Sophie does a positive thing. Rather than simply throwing a nonstop tantrum, she takes charge of managing her emotional state. Her reaction is to run. "She runs and runs and runs until she can't run anymore." "Then for a little while, she cries." At that point, she begins to come out of herself and her rage. I liked the use of this method for handling anger, because researchers show that by changing our physiology we can change our mood. Also, exercising releases stress and anger. Sophie's family lives near the seashore, so Sophie goes to a peaceful spot . . . where she has found solace before. I think this is an excellent example for your child, suggesting that a child find a place where she or he can be quietly alone where he or she finds peace. This can be a good place to visit, even when the child isn't angry.Then Sophie comes home. "She feels better now." "The house is warm and smells good." "Everyone's glad she's home." So there are no further consequences except feeling loved. This is a marvelous way to encourage a child to take care of their emotions in ways that keep an even balance in family relations.The messages that a child

Perfect for helping young children process anger

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.

When Sophie Gets Angry-Really, Really Angry?

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.

Outstanding book that helps to validate children's feelings

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!