Tag apologising

Rita & Ralph’s Rotten Day

jillrbennett Leave a comment

Rita & Ralph’s Rotten Day
Carmen Agra Deedy and Pete Oswald
Scholastic

Separated by several hills, best friends Rita and Ralph live quite some distance apart but they have established a daily routine, a ritual really. They both go ‘down the hill, and up the hill, and down the hill, and up the hill’ to meet under the apple tree between their houses. There they ‘high-five, pinkie-shake, do a cha-cha-cha, play zombie tag, and make daisy chains.’
One day though, they decide to play a new game, Sticks and Stones. Ralph accidentally knocks Rita who ends up with a very sore bump on her head and they both run off back home, Rita angry, Ralph sorry for hurting his best pal.


He wants to apologise so he makes the entire journey to Rita’s house. What a walk! ‘down the hill and up the hill … ‘He arrives feeling a tad grumpy and his apology doesn’t come across as very genuine so Rita’s door remains closed. Off storms Ralph back home leaving Rita feeling the need to say sorry. Off she runs – you know how it goes –

but her thoughts en route anger her and she also leaves without apologising. Now the two children are both mad and sad. What a rotten day and it’s followed by a sleepless night.
A new day begins and Rita and Ralph head out to their usual meeting place. Can peace resume? Of course it can for ‘best friends always find a way… ‘

Thoroughly engaging and what fun this will be in a story time session with all that upping and downing of hills, high fiving, pinkie shaking, cha-cha-cha’ing. The author provides a note showing how to play the ‘Mr Wiggle and Mr Waggle’ hand game after the story, a story which shows how anger can sometimes cause ridiculous behaviour and saying sorry to a treasured friend is a vital, often up and down, process. Pete Oswald’s digitally worked gouache illustrations skilfully uses the format, showing the hilly landscape, the contrasting homes of Rita and Ralph, not to mention occasional guest appearances of Ralph’s cat and Rita’s dog, and humorously depicting the feelings of both children in their constantly changing expressions and body language.

The Big Bad Mood / Everyone …

jillrbennett 1 Comment

The Big Bad Mood
Tom Jamieson and Olga Demidova
Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Beware the Big Bad Mood; he’s always lurking somewhere around on the off-chance that you’ll be having one of those days when everything in the world seems to be conspiring to ruffle your feathers and make you feel thoroughly bad tempered. It’s such a day for young George – total tantrums are the order of his day. “There’s a big bad mood hanging around you today” says his mum.
George isn’t convinced: he can’t see the thing anywhere, which only makes him feel …

Then, seemingly out of nowhere there appears right before him a large blobby being announcing itself as “the Big Bad Mood”. His sole purpose, he informs George is to make everyone just like him – big, bad and moody; and he wants the boy’s help.
Off they go on their mischief-making mission and before long rather a lot of people are in big bad moods, including a fair number of George’s friends.
All this behaviour is pretty exhausting though, and after a while, George at least is starting to think constant big bad moodiness is not his thing; it’s silly, noisy, and upsetting for his friends.

Consequently, he bids farewell to his erstwhile companion who stomps off to find another partner in crime. And George? Maybe you can imagine what he did thereafter; let’s just say that he does apologise to all concerned; and he’s changed – somewhat!
A cleverly constructed, fun story to share and open up discussions about bad moods and anger-related feelings. Olga Demidova’s scenes of domestic moodiness, and the mayhem George causes out and about, will bring on giggles aplenty.

Everyone
Christopher Silas Neal
Walker Books
Emotions are at the heart of Christopher Silas Neal’s debut as author/illustrator. I’m familiar with his wonderful artwork in Over and Under the Pond and this is somewhat sparer, or rather, for this feelings-centred book, the artist has chosen to use a restricted colour palette.
Herein, by means of a small boy character he explores the power of human emotions, demonstrating that they are perfectly normal. All of us experience them: all of us need to accept them for their universality. Neal’s focus is on the way in which as humans, our emotions are drawn into a relationship with the natural world – the birds, the sky, flowers.

His prose is simple, yet lyrical; his voice authentic sounding. “Sometimes, you just need to cry, and that’s OK,” he says as the boy’s tears become birds flying into the grey sky.

With Personal, Social and Emotional Development being one of the prime areas in the EYFS, books such as this one are just right for encouraging young children to talk about how they and others show their feelings.

I’ve signed the charter  

Grumpy Frog

jillrbennett 1 Comment

Grumpy Frog
Ed Vere
Puffin Books
Grumpy Frog wasn’t the only character to be leaping around when I opened his book parcel: I started leaping round the kitchen waving the book in delight especially as its arrival coincided with Earth Day and there on the first double spread is a more upbeat version of the amphibian proclaiming thus:

He then proceeds to blow it though by damming every other colour, he can think of: “Uh oh!” to pinch his words, “Grumpy Frog alert!“.
Better organise a hopping contest with some pals ASAP, but make sure he crosses the line first or else …

Don’t think of suggesting a swim – that involves blue; or a bounce, which, so Grumpy Frog decrees, is yellow.
It looks as though isolation is the best thing; after all, aloneness he absolutely adores. It gives him time to contemplate colour, diet, annual events and err … loneliness.

Not such a good idea after all then, this setting oneself apart.
Enter stage left another kind of jumper but as you might expect, a pink rabbit gets a huge thumbs down from our frog who manages to make the poor unsuspecting creature cry for its trouble. What about this large snuggle toothed croc. then? He’s definitely making friendly overtures towards GF and SNAP! Oh no! surely Grumpy Frog hasn’t met his demise; has he?
Actually no: a spot of self-reflection appears to have saved his skin so …

Furthermore it looks as though some apologies are on the cards too; though that is not quite the end of this corker of a book: this is …

and, to discover what happens in the interim, I urge you to hot foot it, or rather hop foot it immediately to your nearest bookshop and bag yourself a copy.
It’s an utter triumph for Ed Vere and maybe even for Grumpy Frog, just so long as he gets there first. This reviewer found herself snortling at every turn of the page: it’s the perfect antidote to grumpiness (and election blues).

I’ve signed the charter