Jekyll's Bad Mood: A Little Monsters Milestone Book

by Jen Arena, Beatriz TORRES GERMAN (illustrator)

20 pages, Board Book

Published July 30, 2024

About the author

Jen Arena is lucky to have been surrounded by great children’s books her whole life. As a teenager, she worked at a children’s-only indie bookstore in Pennsylvania, and after graduating from college, she made her way to New York City, where she found a job in children's book publishing. Since then, she’s written many books for kids. She recently left New York and now lives in Florida, surrounded by sunshine, palm trees, and really weird birds.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jekyll’s Bad Mood shares the brief story of Jekyll, who, when angry, becomes Hyde and does things he regrets, like openly assaulting other children when they get something he wants. Yes, he does indeed attack another child.

It’s hard to see what the point of this book is. In terms of illustration, length, and complexity, it’s best for the toddler crowd. It introduces the emotion of feeling mad but doesn’t explore much about what to do with that. The illustrations often don’t match the tone of where the book should be—parents smiling, for example, during a scene immediately after the child has fought with another child. For this age group, it's a huge miss.

For older children, preschoolers and up, the moral of the story is unhelpful because there isn’t one. When you get angry and hurt people because of it, the message appears to be that it’s OK because everyone gets mad, and it doesn’t last long.

Ultimately, confusing messaging and lackluster illustrations make this one to skip.