When Sophie has to surrender one toy to her sister, stumbles over another toy, and gets no sympathy from her mother, she runs furiously out into the woods, first to cry, and then sit in a huge old beech, watching the ocean until the tempest abates. Bang (Common Ground, 1997, etc.) captures the intensity of Sophie’s feelings with strong, broadly brushed forms and colors: images of flames and a volcano; blue eyes glaring up from a red background that looks as if it’s exploding; then harmonious, leafy greens and browns; and concluding scenes of domestic amity. This briefly told behavior-management episode explores well-worked thematic territory, but as in Hiawyn Oram’s Angry Arthur (1989)—and in contrast to the child in Betsy Everitt’s Mean Soup (1992)—Sophie finds a way to cope with her anger, quite laudably, without a helping adult hand. (Picture book. 5-7)
