Booklist calls Kenneth Kraegel’s SOMETHING GOOD “humorously relatable” and “a fresh addition to the enduring canon of bad day books”

Something Good by Kenneth Kraegel. Illus. by the author.

Feb. 2025. 40p. Candlewick, $17.99 (9781536229448). PreS–Gr. 2

This very bad day begins in bed, when a tousle-haired tot wakes to the beady gaze of a chicken perched on her forehead. Worms in her cereal give way to boots brimming with mud and a distracted best friend with a disinterested gaze. Each new indignity elicits a resigned “blah” as the hapless heroine falls into a hole and is trapped by a hairy mastodon. Opening an unexpected present yield more disappointment, but when a chilling downpour prompts her to pull on these dispiriting gift socks, her fortune flips. Finally, she can exult “something good!” before soaring joyfully upward in a sunny sky. Even better, this happy magic magnifies when shared: reunited, the friends each sport one green sock, taking fanciful flights with circling chickens, above rejoicing worms and a trumpeting mastodon. With quirky, delightful characters in an expressionistic world of whimsically aware vegetation and cheerfully empathetic creatures, prolific creator Kraegel’s distinctive, somewhat naive-style art enhances the humorously relatable experience of just "being in a mood." A fresh addition to the enduring canon of bad day books.