What Do You Do with a Grumpy Kangaroo?

Magic Castle Readers

by Jane Belk Moncure, Linda Hohag (Illustrator), Lori Jacobson (Illustrator)

Tony tries to cheer up Grumpy Kangaroo by taking him to the circus and the playground

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Emotion

32 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Jane Belk Moncure (born December 1926) is an American author of early childhood non-fiction, fiction and poetry. She has also written under the names Bruce Wannamaker and Jennie Davis.

Moncure has lived in Virginia and North Carolina. She worked in early childhood education for thirty-five years. She lives in Elon College, North Carolina.

Moncure is a creative and prolific author: there are millions of her books in circulation, and they are widely distributed in schools and libraries. Distribution has been primarily through The ChildsWorld, ChildrensPress and Scholastic. Her creations and works include My First Steps to Reading, My First Steps to Math, My First Steps to Science, Word Bird, The Soundbox Books, and The Magic Castle Series. Her works have been translated into British English, Spanish, French, Chinese, and Malay. Belk Library, Elon University holds a collection of all published books by Moncure.

Jane Belk Moncure is a recipient of the C.S. Lewis Award and over the past 20 years, her works were recognized by numerous Awards. Most recently, in 2008, Jane received the Scholastic Teacher's Choice Award for her outstanding contribution to the My First Steps to Learning Program. --from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Katherine]

Uhhhg. Maybe, just maybe, this book would be bearable if the first and last pages didn't call the little boy's book a "word window" instead of a book. Is the "word window" a basic premise of Magic Castle? That just goes to show how idiotic marketing will get in an attempt to turn something into a popular brand.

Oh, wait. I just remembered that one of the illustrations shows a horse acrobat's cleavage. I changed my mind: even without the "word window" fluff, the book stinks.

[Jacie Smith]

No one understands the emotional relationship I have with this book. My mom had this book memorized word for word so she could “read” it to me to keep me behaved in public. The grumpy kangaroo is my spirit animal fr and thinking about him now makes me want to cry

[Lee Ann]

I have so many memories of checking these books out of the St. John's library and reading them over and over again. 5/5 stars.

[Atlantis]

A first reader rhyming book to help build vocabulary. It discusses feelings.

[Brian Harris]

This book could teach kids about the range of emotions.

[Clivemichael]

Encouraging

[Jessica]

Fiction. This book talks about the many emotions a kangaroo goes through. It can serve as a book to talk about a student's feelings. It can be used with an activity to have a mood chart in the class to see how students are feeling that day.

[Maritza Valle]

Meh. An okay beginner book for increasing emotional vocabulary, but not ultimately a good resource compared to some other things that are available.

[Kymberly]

Cute and simple book to teach emotions & reading. The only thing I didn't like was that when kangaroo was in bad mood you had to do something else for him. Shows kids that they only can be happy when things go their way. Love this book other than that.

[Joy]

Tony finds a grumpy kangaroo in a book and decides to try to cheer him up. In the process, the kangaraoo goes through a range of emotions from sad to hurt to happy. At the end of the book, there are pictures of the different emotions of the kangaroo.

[Diann]

We love this one!

[Theresa]

What Do You Do with a Grumpy Kangaroo?
Moncure, Jane Belk
a cute early reader story
a great early reader shows emotions and how to handle them.

[Megan]

Way to confuse kids by calling books "word windows."

[Davincis Pizza]

Fun book to read with children.