When Sophie Gets Angry--Really, Really Angry...

Bang, M. (1999). When Sophie gets angry -- really, really angry... New York: Scholastic.

Thanks to Malia Gibson for well-done reflection.

This story is a Caldecott honor book, and I choose it because I have two students with anger issues. I think this book can not only help them, but can also help my entire class. The story is about a little girl name Sophie who gets upset when she has to share a toy with her sister. This begins a conflict (person-against-person) because even though Sophie's mom tells her its her sister's turn, her sister still snatches the toy away from her. After this occurs the real conflict occurs (person-against-self) because Sophie gets angry and does not know how to control her anger. After boiling over Sophie begins some cool down techniques to help her control her anger. The color and changes of color in this story set the mood. When Sophie is really angry and steaming the colors are bright red, oranges, and purples, and the illustrationss contain words with jagged edges around them to depict her anger. As Sophie becomes sad the colors change to browns and reds, and as she calms down the colors change to greens and blues giving a sense of being calm. I would use this book to teach calming techniques and to talk about feelings. We all experience different feeling at different times, and we must know what to do with our feelings. I would ask my students "What do you  do when you get angry?" "Tell me about a time you were angry" "How did you feel when you were angry" "How did you calm down?" Is there anything you could have done better?" Then I would introduce the story. I believe seeing a story about a little girl who learns to control her anger could help them learn better tecniques and know that everyone gets angry sometimes.