Starred Review An African American brother and sister are happily coloring together when the girl's "deep down blue" crayon snaps in half. She becomes angry, so livid that she turns into a furry red monster that is "furious, fuming, frustrated." Her brother, startled by her reaction, patiently helps Allie alleviate her wrath by showing her four ways to get it out. He gives her a pillow to punch ("That got the worst of the angry off"). He gives her her favorite toy to squeeze, tells her to blow out a deep breath, and has her count backwards. With each step, some of Allie's anger dissipates, until she's just regular angry ("and maybe a little sad, too"). Reul's cartoon artwork was created in Photoshop and uses red, orange, green, and blue to demonstrate the stages of Allie's ire. A few of her crayons are shown on the front endpapers, lying atop an enraged scrawl and are named "fire fury explosion red," "raging flame orange," and "simmering storm green," giving a clue to the tale to come. Leaving the background space white puts the focus on Allie's changing moods. A roll of tape and a very caring big brother save the day. What appears to be a simple story upon first glance actually offers uncomplicated yet practical remedies for helping a child deal with a strong emotion.

A big brother helps his little sister calm down.The cover art depicts the first-person narrator, a little boy of color with brown skin and curly black hair, looking at a red-furred monster sticking out its tongue. The front endpapers then depict a broken blue crayon on top of scribbled lines in warm hues on a blue background. Turn to the title page, and the narrator holds a pile of furry-looking things in reddish, yellow, and green hues while blue hands reach toward him from the right. The first spread with text then shows the boy looking wide-eyed at readers while seated at an art table. A red, spiky mass covers the bottom of the spread, which is supposed to represent Allie (or rather, the top of Allie's head), in a rage after her crayon breaks. These crucial spreads are difficult to follow, and it will take concrete little thinkers some time to come to understand that Allie did not look like this prior to the beginning of the book. Instead, the book starts with the monstrous image, and Reul uses expressive color to indicate Allie's rage as she pitches a fit in the form of the red monster. She literally sheds her red skin and shifts colors to yellow, then green, then blue as her big brother tries various calming techniques. Finally, she emerges as a little girl of color by book's end, and she requests a hug. A metaphorical miss. (Picture book. 2-4)

PreS-Gr 2 When Allie's crayon snaps in half, the toddler goes into a red-monster rage, smashing and screaming, until her brother calmly coaches her to punch a pillow. When her rage simmers down to an fiery orange, he offers her favorite toy to squeeze; and then, even when she can't remember what she was angry about, he has her take a deep breath and pretend his fingers are candles to blow out one by one. Finally, counting backward reveals an abashed brown-skinned child asking for a hug from a wise older brother who "knew she was in there all along." The artistic rendering of Allie as a color-changing monster is a multidimensional way of visually representing anger to young children while giving them skills to cope and eventually learn to calm themselves. Reul uses language economically, making this ideal for the audience but still powerful enough for discussing emotions at any age. VERDICT A solid addition to the canon of books helping young children address social and emotional learning. Jenna Boles, Greene County Public Library, Beavercreek, OH