Plot Summary

      When Sophie Gets Angry Really, Really Angry is written and illustrated by Molly Bang and was published in 1999.  It is a story of a little girl who becomes very angry and runs into the woods to calm down and then returns home.  This book is in the picture book genre because the illustrations and the text come together to help each other tell the story.  The setting takes place within Sophie’s house and also within the woods near a body of water that is by her home.  The characters in the story are Sophie who is the main character, her sister, mother, and father.  Although there are four characters present within the story the main focus is on Sophie with the remaining characters only having very minute supporting roles.  The point of view is from a third person narrative perspective.  The central theme of the story is how to deal with and handle anger when it happens.

Textual Elements

     The text in the story is very intriguing and in many instances takes of a life of its own especially when Sophie gets angry.  Once Sophie reaches her boiling point she releases her anger with a “red, red roar” the reader can see the word “ROAR” in all capital letters stretches across two pages again with the colors orange and red twirled together to look as if the word is on fire as it leaves Sophie’s body.  Other words in the story used in this story to show the anger Sophie is feeling are explode, smash, and pabam.  All of these words are in capital letters in a very large font to put a lot of emphasis on them to show the heightened emotion of anger that Sophie is feeling.  The letters in the word smash look as if they are crumbling to give extra meaning to the word, while in the word explode each letter starting from the beginning of the word become larger show the anger building larger within Sophie.  The text also displays a feeling of happiness and a feeling of being whole at the end of the story where it says “Everything’s Back Together Again”.  The text on this page is again in all capital letters with a larger font though not as large as when Sophie is angry and it is in the color yellow with a blue outline to show happiness and calmness.

Artistic Elements 

     The artistic elements within this book are wonderful.  The style of art used in this book is impressionistic because it uses both light and color to give impression of real world things.  The style accompanied by the use of line in the story is phenomenal to help get the emotions and feelings that are taking place across.  When Sophie becomes angry the outline around her body turns red and orange to display her feelings of anger and rage.  At one point within the book you can see waves of orange and red that seem to pulsate outward from around her body evoking a volcano that is ready to blow.  Conversely when Sophie is calm the color of bright yellow outlining her body along with the use of the greens, and blues to project calmness are present.  The media and technique used to create this book were paints to display the different emotions that Sophie feels throughout the story.

Analysis and Critique

     I think the social relevance of this story is very important.  It shows children and adults for that matter how to deal with emotions of anger by removing themselves from the situation and dealing with these overwhelming feelings in a nonviolent way.  Anger is an emotion within children, and adolescence that often doesn’t get addressed enough and this book does a good job of displaying how this emotion can make a person feel with its rich illustrations, and great use of text.  There are many underlying messages that a reader can take away from this story besides how to deal and cope with anger.  The issue family support is present at the end of the story.  It displays that no matter how bad a blowup or angry you get about something your family will always be there to stand by you in the end. 

     Another hidden message that is negative that could be contrived by reading this book is to run away from your problems when you become angry.  I can see how a reader could get this interpretation from this story although I definitely think that this is not at all the message the author was trying to get across in this book.  The age appropriateness of this book I think would be from around three to eight years old given the child’s reading ability.  All in all this is a great book with a good message that is illustrated superbly.

Citation

Picture Book Citation

Last Name, First Name. Book Title. Illus. Illustrator First and Last Name. City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.

One Author (No Illustrator)

Last Name, First Name. Book Title. City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.

Two or More Authors: 1)  List the names in the order they appear on the title page. 2) Only the first author's name should be reversed: Last Name, First Name. 3) Use a comma between the           authors' names. Place a period after the last author's name.

Last Name, First Name and 2nd Author First Name Last Name. Book Title. City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.

References

Will need to look up format for the type of source used.