When the Anger Ogre Visits

February 23, 2015
Art therapist Andrée Salom focuses on teaching children to recognize emotions—specifically, anger—as a first step toward coping with them. She gives examples of how anger feels in the body (“If the Anger Ogre is still swollen, tense, and hot,/ Offer it some honey of the sweetest kind you’ve got”), then offers suggestions for changing those feelings: relax, pay attention, and breathe. Ivette Salom’s colorful illustrations—which are heavy on the red-orange palette, suggesting anger—of children and creatures are lively and slightly Seussian. The drawings of the Anger Ogre, though, may be a bit scary for very young readers, but, if read with a parent or caregiver, this simple rhyming tale can help children recognize their angry feelings and learn a process for how to manage them. Andrée Salom teaches basic mindfulness, a trend in today’s classrooms, in a way that is imaginative, simple, and even fun. Overall, this succeeds at making sophisticated psychological information accessible to even the youngest children. Ages 3–7.