Mr Huff by Anna Walker

 

Mr Huff by Anna Walker

Published July 2015 Penguin Books
 

Award-winning and much-loved author and illustrator Anna Walker gives us a gentle, poignant, affirming and wise picture book sure to delight all ages.  Mr. Huff is a story about the clouds and the sunshine in each of our lives.
 

Bill is having a bad day.

Mr Huff is following him around and making everything seem difficult.
 

Bill tries to get rid of him, but Mr Huff just gets bigger and bigger!
 

Then they both stop, and a surprising thing happens . . .

 

There’s a lot to love about Anna Walker’s new picture book

1.  The illustrations. 
   Stunning as always, and for those of us that love end papers, these are great.  Each showing a street scene, the same scene but slight differences from front to back.
    
2. The story.
   Bill wakes up to a gloomy day, where nothing goes quite right.  Things don’t get much better throughout the day, and his unhappy/sad/grumpy/angry feelings start to take over and the grey cloud that follows him around (Mr Huff) gets bigger and bigger.
    
   It might sound weird, but I like books that show being unhappy/sad/grumpy/angry is part of life.  Obviously I don’t WANT children to be unhappy, but it’s a fact of life that we have good days, and not so good days.  So a book that shows how you can deal with those bad days and get back to happy, is a good one.