7 October 2015 WHEN SOPHIE’S FEELINGS ARE REALLY, REALLY HURT by Molly Bang, Blue Sky Press, September 2015, 40p., ISBN: 978-0-545-78831-1

“No one I think is in my tree

I mean it must be high or low”

-- John Lennon, “Strawberry Fields Forever” (1967)

“But now she has another problem:

If the tree is blue, what color is the sky?

Sophie paints the sky orange. Now the tree pops right out. The beech looks wonderful--the way it makes her feel.

But plain green leaves look too dark.

Sophie remembers how each leaf glowed in the sun. She tries yellow and mixes in some green. She even knows this color’s name: chartreuse. YES!”

There’s an old Aileen Fisher poem titled “Climbing” that I embraced as a kid. I encourage you to check it out. Back then, I often took pleasure in climbing up into the swaying limbs of trees. In retrospect, I imagine it provided respite from the complications of interacting with kids and from my thoughts about the nightly news which so often scared me.

I was high up in a tree just the other day, removing a couple of branches that had fallen victim to California’s drought. The gentle rocking of the boughs and that feeling of escape still provide lots of pleasure.

With this sequel to Molly Bang’s award-winning WHEN SOPHIE GETS ANGRY-- REALLY, REALLY ANGRY..., I enjoyed once again following Sophie up into the big old beech tree she loves. In this story, Sophie’s teacher assigns her to carefully observe a tree and then paint it from memory. When Sophie uses her creativity to depict how the beloved beech tree makes her feel, she’s mocked by a classmate. Fortunately, Sophie has a wise and articulate teacher who defuses the tension, facilitates a discussion, and leads the kids to a win-win conclusion.

The news still scares me, maybe more than ever. It seems that for every social or environmental problem resolved, a new issue arises. It’s tough having kids and a grandkid and worrying about how the planet and its inhabitants might resolve so many challenges, threats, and conflicts.

There’s no question that imaginative thinking must be valued and nurtured. We can only hope that the next generation can dream up strategies to solve the seemingly insolvable. WHEN SOPHIE’S FEELINGS ARE REALLY, REALLY HURT is a story that promotes thinking outside the box.

As with the previous Sophie book, which won the Jane Addams Peace Award, this second book does an excellent job of illustrating nonviolent problem solving techniques. This is another notable, must-have picture book by Molly Bang.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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