Something Good

December 1, 2024
Like the hero ofAlexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Kraegel's protagonist is having a tough time. Despite a rough morning, the child is holding out hope for "something good." Small, humorous slights and annoyances add up for the young narrator (who has light skin and straight, dark hair), leading the child to declare, "Blah. Nothing good ever happens to me." Quirky incidents ("I woke up with a chicken on my head"; "I realized too late that my boots were full of mud") give way to the absurd when the child falls into a deep hole, which a "hairy mastodon" sits over. Expressive illustrations rendered in colored pencil, gouache, and ink enhance the humor with a cartoon style reminiscent of Michael Emberley's work. The narrative doubles down on its fantastic turn when the protagonist finds a wrapped present on the sidewalk: Although the child is initially disappointed to find it contains socks, they turn out to have magical powers that send the narrator flying through the air.This is the "something good" the protagonist has been waiting for! It only gets better when a friend joins in on the fun, and then, after a while, they pass their good fortune along to another child, "someone who needed the socks more than we did." Filled with humorous twists and turns, something good, indeed, for storytime.(Picture book. 3-8)

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February 1, 2025
Preschool-Grade 2 This very bad day begins in bed, when a tousle-haired tot wakes to the beady gaze of a chicken perched on her forehead. Worms in her cereal give way to boots brimming with mud and a distracted best friend with an uninterested gaze. Each new indignity elicits a resigned "blah" as the hapless heroine falls into a hole and is trapped by a hairy mastodon. Opening an unexpected present yields more disappointment, but when a chilling downpour prompts her to pull on these dispiriting gift socks, her fortune flips. Finally, she can exult "something good!" before soaring joyfully upward in a sunny sky. Even better, this happy magic magnifies when shared: reunited, the friends each sport one green sock, taking fanciful flights with circling chickens, above rejoicing worms and a trumpeting mastodon. With quirky, delightful characters in an expressionistic world of whimsically aware vegetation and cheerfully empathetic creatures, prolific creator Kraegel's distinctive, somewhat naive-style art enhances the humorously relatable experience of just "being in a mood." A fresh addition to the enduring canon of bad-day books.

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