Cranky Right Now

by Julie Berry, Holly Hatam (Illustrator)

Overview

Sometimes we’re all cranky, and that’s okay! Cranky Right Now shows kids how to deal with those cranky days.

Cranky Right Now brings a much-needed message to kids: sometimes we’re all cranky. Maybe we’re tired, we’re hungry, or we’re just feeling grumpy. Dealing with emotions can be hard. Cranky Right Now is a fun and funny ride through the ups and downs of being cranky, helping kids process difficult feelings, frustrating relationships, and things that just make them mad.

Award-winning author Julie Berry talks about reasons kids can feel cranky and how to recognize those feelings and acknowledge them. She then gives simple practices for moving through crankiness. She shows that it’s okay to be in a bad mood sometimes—just not to take it out on others—and that cranky days will eventually give way to happy ones.

A companion volume to Happy Right Now, with Holly Hatam’s bright and playful illustrations, Cranky Right Now helps you embrace, understand, and move through cranky in a whole new way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683646648
Publisher:	Sounds True, Incorporated
Publication date:	05/11/2021
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	295,688
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Julie Berry has written many books for children, including The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place and The Emperor’s Ostrich. Her novel Lovely War was a New York Times bestseller, and The Passion of Dolssa was a Printz Honor book. Julie is happiest when her family piles onto the couch to watch classic movies together, her piano playing doesn’t sound too terrible, and she manages to get to yoga class. She lives in Southern California. Learn more at julieberrybooks.com.

Holly Hatam is a picture book maker, greeting card designer, textile engineer, and the illustrator of the #1 New York Times bestselling Dear Girl and Dear Boy. Holly is happiest when she’s snuggling up with her husband and son, hugging trees, and escaping into piles and piles of books. She lives in Whitby, Ontario. Learn more at hollyhatam.com.

Editorial Reviews

06/07/2021

This companion to the collaborators’ Happy Right Now marks the return of their narrator, a child with brown skin. An opening scene finds the child beneath a blanket fort, warning a guardian with an Afro: “I’m cranky right now, and I have my reasons.” A comprehensive enumeration of wrongs and slights follows, from younger brother annoyances to parental hypocrisy when it comes to snacking; many of the scenes are anchored by the presence of a calm, slightly bemused guardian. Readers will savor the child’s assertion: “You’d be cranky, too, if you lived with this much injustice.” Hatam boosts the gentle comedy with mixed media, cartoon-style illustrations. The book’s ultimate message—moods pass—is familiar, but there’s an amusing twist when, after a restorative nap, Berry’s charming text breaks into rhyme: “If you’re cranky, I get it,” the child magnanimously tells her once-scorned little brother. “Use my blankie, don’t sweat it.” Ages 4–8. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"Readers will savor...Berry’s charming text [and] Hatam boosts the gentle comedy with mixed media, cartoon-style illustrations." —Publishers Weekly

"True to life..." –Kirkus

From the Publisher

2021-04-14
Somebody’s cranky.

Like all other characters in this picture book, the first-person narrator isn’t named. She presents as a Black girl with light-brown skin, her hair styled in Afro puffs. The text details that she’s cranky for many reasons, chief among them her mischievous little brother, who is also Black and has darker brown skin and a cloudlike Afro. Illustrator Hatam adroitly uses facial expressions to depict the protagonist’s displeasure with her brother and her angst at perceived injustices meted out by her parents (mom shares the brother’s coloring while the father shares the main character’s). Such details as the narrator’s red, scowling “cranky boots” and interactions with the family’s pets add further interest. The text is masterful in its misdirection and displacement of responsibility: “It’s not my fault that certain people / have no patience at all. / And the cat ate the cookies. / Nothing is fair. / And nobody cares.” While the scenarios feel quite realistic, about three-quarters of the way through, the text begins to use end rhymes: “Then, chances are, after a good, tired flop, / The cranky in me will decide to stop.” This transition both feels disjointed from the beginning part of the book and somehow has the effect of leaching some of the emotional power from the text—and it may make some readers feel confused if not cranky.

True to life, if lacking cohesion. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews