Way Past Mad

by Hallee Adelman, Sandra de la Prada (Illustrator)

Overview

Sometimes being mad is more than a feeling.

Keya is way past mad. Her little brother Nate messed up everything―even breakfast. She heads to school kicking rocks and sticks. When her best friend Hooper tries to help, Keya shouts, "I don't even like you." It's not true, but Hooper storms off, kicking rocks and sticks too. Keya gave him her mad! Now it's up to Keya to find a different way past mad and to make things right. A relatable story that speaks to kids' emerging emotional intelligence skills.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807586853
Publisher:	Whitman, Albert & Company
Publication date:	03/01/2020
Series:	GREAT BIG FEELINGST
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	AD500L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Hallee Adelman is the author of numerous books for children and works to better the lives of kids and families through education, story, and film. With a PhD in education, she has taught elementary through university students and was nominated twice for the Disney Teacher of the Year Award. Hallee lives outside Philadelphia with her family.

Sandra de la Prada has studied art, design, and illustration in Spain and Italy. She loves to draw in the morning with her two cats, Chicho and Rudo, for company. Sandra lives with her family in Spain.

Editorial Reviews

2020-01-12
Anger at a sibling gets taken out on a friend.

Protagonist Keya fumes when younger brother Nate gives Keya's cereal to the dog and cuts holes in Keya's favorite hat. Keya stomps outside. Hooper, Keya's friend, offers a cheerful greeting, but Keya darts away. A fantasy race ensues, briefly cathartic, but Keya's temper explodes after a knee-scraping tumble. Keya bursts out, "I don't like you, Hooper." It's not true, of course, and they make up after a sweetly responsible apology. Aside from twice waxing poetic ("The kind of mad that starts / and swells / and spreads like a rash"), Adelman's prose is dull and declarative ("Then we joked and laughed. I was so happy"). Keya and her family present white and Hooper, black. Keya's glorious, lively black curls are de la Prada's best visual. Many illustrations are too uniformly saturated, with the composition offering no clear place to focus. A "gold medal like sunshine" that Keya wins in the imagined race is barely visible. In a critical misstep for a book for fostering emotional literacy, narrator Keya says Hooper looks "way past mad"—echoing an earlier description of Keya—while the illustrations clearly show him as hurt, not angry. Choose Tameka Fryer Brown and Shane Evans' My Cold Plum Lemon Pie Bluesy Mood (2013) or Judith Viorst and Ray Cruz's classic Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (1972) instead.

In a crowded subgenre, this offering is unnecessary. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews

"This is a great choice for teaching elementary-age children how to handle their friendships and emotions, especially instances of displaced anger."—Booklist

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