No One is Angry Today by Toon Tellegen and Marc Boutavant (Gecko, $34.99)
Reviewed by Louise Ward, Wardini Books
This book, ostensibly for children, begins with a firebelly toad visiting the house of the hedgehog and pulling all his quills out.
Toad then yells, how do you feel? The hedgehog replies that he is angry but the Toad is not convinced that this is the truth. Bizarre? Yes, but what a beginning!
This is a series of stories in which certain animal characters display extremities of emotion — anger, sadness, malcontent. Friends and neighbours appear sanguine, forgiving, thoughtful. The reader is subtly invited to have a good think about what is going on.
In the first story, the toad's neighbours are all assaulted during the course of a day – really horrible things happen to them as the toad tries to get them to understand his anger.