My No, No, No Day!

Bella is in a contrarian mood, to put it charitably. It starts when she wakes up to find her little brother, Bob, “crawling around my room and licking my jewelry,” and it’s downhill from there. Nothing goes right for Bella, and she’s more than willing to play her misery forward: after her cookie breaks during a play-date lunch, Bella insists that Bob and her friend Sasha “can’t be princesses!” But by bedtime, the exhausted narrator apologizes for her behavior. “We all have those days sometimes,” says her mother sagely. Patterson keeps her artwork simple—her line drawings have a pared-down feel, and most of the scenes share the same straight-on perspective. But by giving Bella the same disheveled mop of brown hair, glaring eyes, and gaping black hole for a mouth on virtually every page, and coupling these elements with a heedless, furious physicality, Patterson conveys a rage that readers should find appalling and thrilling at the same time. One is reminded of the words of Addison DeWitt in All About Eve: “You’re maudlin and full of self-pity. You’re magnificent!” Ages 3–5. (Apr.)