  | Sometimes I grumblesquinch (Big Feelings Book (Scholastic)) Author: Vail, Rachel | |
| Price: $23.28 | ||
Summary:
Katie Honors is a really nice kid. But there's one little secret that sometimes makes her feel not-so-nice deep inside: her little brother, Chuck. Chuck can sometimes be just so icky and messy. When all these emotions bubble up to the surface, Katie can no longer grumblesquinch them down.
| Illustrator: | Yum, Hyewon |
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (+) (06/01/22)
School Library Journal (+) (07/01/22)
Full Text Reviews:
School Library Journal - 07/01/2022 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 - Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
