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  • Children ages 4–7 learning to navigate negative emotions
  • Kids dealing with sibling squabbles, frustration, or hurt feelings
  • Families talking about apologies, empathy, and making amends
  • Children learning that it's okay to feel angry while still taking responsibility for their actions
  • Rhyming bedtime stories and family read-alouds
  • Preschool and early elementary classrooms
  • Parents, grandparents, teachers, counselors, and librarians looking for children's books about emotions, anger, apologies, and emotional regulation
  • A thoughtful gift with a message children can actually use

The Grump Hump turns a feeling children already know into something they can see, name, and understand—giving families a memorable way to talk about what happens after tempers flare.

Because we all get a Grump Hump sometimes. What matters is being aware of it, and choosing to make things right.

Perfect for:

The book includes "Story Talk" questions to help parents, grandparents, teachers, and caregivers continue the conversation after reading, along with How to Make Things Right, a child-friendly guide for what to do when we've hurt someone.


More Than the Story

Little boy with The Grump HumpThe Grump Hump book laying open face downThe Grump Hump open pages to illustrationsThe Grump Hump open pages to illustrations

The Grump Hump is a playful, rhyming picture book about big feelings, sibling squabbles, and one very stubborn grump monster that just won't go away.

Everyone gets grumpy sometimes.

But for one little boy, a bad mood doesn't simply disappear. It follows him.

After a rough day turns into a rough week, he discovers that his grumpiness has taken on a life of its own—a Grump Hump that's suddenly along for the ride. And getting rid of it isn't quite as easy as he'd hoped.

As the Grump Hump lingers, the boy begins to realize that feeling better isn't only about his feelings. Sometimes, when we've hurt someone we love, there's something we need to do before we can truly move forward.

Through playful rhyme, expressive illustrations, and a memorable Grump Hump, children ages 4–7 get to experience a familiar situation from a wonderfully imaginative point of view.

For kids, it's a story about a boy with an impossible-to-ignore creature on his back and his quest to finally get rid of it.

For grown-ups, it's a gentle way to open conversations about negative emotions, sibling conflict, empathy, apologies, forgiveness, and making things right—all from the confines of a fun story. 

Most importantly, The Grump Hump doesn't tell children that being angry or grumpy is bad. Big feelings happen. Instead, the story helps children begin to understand the difference between having a feeling and what we choose to do with it.

A grumpy boy in a bad mood sitting on the sidewalk with a scowl

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