15th October Grouch Day

Just stand up and complain said Grouch from Sesame Street over fifteen years ago and I first wrote about this day in 2013 giving lots of suggestions for a book display in your library. We often have a display of 'grumpy' books and they are always popular. The word 'grumpy' though has taken on new meaning since the arrival of the  Grumpy Monkey series by Suzanne Lang and her husband, Max Lang. While I was in England and then again in America I saw a large plush version of Grumpy and yet another new book. 'Grumpy' is such a good word and the students love saying it. Of course it has synonyms such as 'crabby', 'bad-tempered', 'prickly', 'crotchety', 'grouchy', 'snarky', 'stroppy', and 'cranky', but 'grumpy' is the one children like.

There are so many books to explore just using these synonyms in a  title search. If you look at this Pinterest list you will see what I mean. Here's some from our library to start you off:

15th October National Grouch Day

I don't know the origin of this day and national means America, but some say it is in honour of Sesame Street's famous grouch Oscar. Whatever its origin this day is a day for grouches and they have an excuse to be grouchy all day long. A grouch's mission in life is to be miserable and as grouchy as possible and then to pass that feeling on to everyone else.

Perhaps the signature grouch in children's literature is the grouchy ladybug in Eric Carle's The Grouchy Ladybug. I get very cross when Americans change the title of Australian and English titles that they import and this is an example where we have done the same to an American title and renamed it The Bad-Tempered Ladybird. Why did we do this? Is 'grouchy' the same as 'bad-tempered'? I think not. Luckily there are both versions in my library. The American version is a larger picture book and better for sharing with classes. Looking up grouchy in three thesauruses, they listed 'ill-tempered' and 'short-tempered' but not 'bad tempered'. As well there were words such as, grumpy, grumbling, grizzly, crabby and cranky. Aren't they lovely sounding words, all the 'gr' and 'cr' sounds that we associate with crying and whining.

There are so many picture books to display for this day that I have been collecting them together over the last week in anticipation. There is:
• The Grunt and the Grouch by Tracey Corderoy and Lee Wildish   (There are four short chapter books about these two characters as well)
• Clifford and the Grouchy Neighbours by Norman Bridwell
• Maya was Grumpy by Courtney Pippin- Mathur
• Grumpy Bird  by Jeremy Tankard
• What Are You So Grumpy About?  by Tom Lichtenheld
•  Greedy Grumpy Hippo by Stuart Trotter
• Grumpy Cat by Britta Teckentrup
• Grumpy Little King by Michel Streich
• The Three Grumpies by Tamra Wight and Ross Collins
• Grumpy Badger's Christmas by Paul Bright and Jane Chapman
• Grumpy Goat by Brett Helquist
• Grumpy Gloria by Anna Dewdney
• Grizzly Dad by Joanna Harrison
• Gruff the Grump  by Steve Smallman and Cee Biscoe
• The Grump  by Sarah Garson
• Crabby Pants by Julie Gassman
• Olive's Bad Mood  by Tor Freeman
• The Very Cranky Bear by Nick Bland
• The Bad Mood! by Moritz Petz and Amelie Jackowski
• Big Rabbit's Bad Mood by Ramona Badescu
• Danny in the Toybox by Richard Tulloch and Armin Greder