Grumpy Monkey

Adorable story for discussing emotional awareness and acceptance of feelings.

(I have read so much preschool literature this year that I've decided I'm including it in my 2025 reading goal - full storybooks only and counting each book only once.)

I really liked how this was about emotions. It's okay to feel grumpy and to sit with feelings for a bit, you don't need to force feeling happy.

A bit conflicted on the message here, so am going with an “okay” rating. I loved the clever illustrations and the side humor in them. It showed a realistic human trait through the medium of the monkey. I liked the message about being honest and not lying about our feelings. At the same time, though, I was a little concerned about the final message of sitting down and indulging in grumpy, since there's a fine line between being honest and letting oneself be a mean killjoy. Jim Panzee made his friends sad because he was sad, and he snapped at them for things that weren't their fault. So overall the honest message is good, and the story is clever, but it missed a large point about how Jim's selfishness also affected his friends' day.

A monkey wakes up grumpy and everyone tries to make him feel better. It is only when he meets a grumpy gorilla that he actually starts to do so.

A fun little story of feelings and finding effective ways of dealing with them that is quite kid-friendly. Who hasn't woken up grumpy sometimes?