The Big Angry Roar

PreS-Gr 1—In this story, a lion cub feels he has been unjustly disciplined by his father for squashing his younger sister. He stomps off in anger, running into a variety of African animals that offer him advice on handling his anger. But Cub is so angry, he can't really appreciate the suggestions of gnu, zebra, rhino, or hippo. When Cub runs smack into a young elephant's bottom, Elephant gets angry too, leading each animal to escalate tensions through a roaring (by Cub) and tooting (by Elephant) match. The two young animals start a stampede with their shenanigans, and it is up to wise Baboon, who has seen it all, to teach Cub how to get over his anger—by taking a deep breath, counting to 10, and being silly. Eventually Cub realizes he has been unreasonable and apologizes to his little sister. Lambert's illustrations are reminiscent of Eric Carle's—clean, white backgrounds set off animal creatures that are created by large swatches of modulated color, except Lambert's animal faces are perhaps even more expressive and on some pages the designs are more complicated.