When Badger gets up on the wrong side of the bed, he decides to share the misery.

“What was the point of being in a bad mood if nobody noticed? Everyone ought to know how miserable I feel, he thought.

Aiming for maximum rudeness and hostility, Badger manages to alienate all of his friends. Once he’s successfully spread his bad mood to everyone he comes across, Badger goes home.

As moods will do, Badger’s changes once he focuses on something other than how bad his mood is. But now all of his friends are in bad moods when he’s ready to play.

Badger learns that it’s not okay to take your bad mood out on others. Ultimately he takes responsibility for his actions and apologises to his friends.

If I was reading this book to a child I’d be taking the opportunity to talk to them about anger and the different ways it can be managed without hurting others.

I enjoyed the illustrations but the layout could have been improved by making the text larger.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and NorthSouth Books for the opportunity to read this picture book.

I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars.