Meet the author

Suzanne Lang.

Writer · United States

Author of Grumpy Monkey, the New York Times number-one bestseller that turned a universal bad mood into a warm, funny and quietly liberating introduction to emotional literacy for the very young.

Suzanne Lang is an American children's author and television writer best known for Grumpy Monkey, her 2018 picture book about Jim the chimpanzee, who wakes in a terrible mood for no reason at all and learns that all feelings are allowed. A deadpan, hugely popular introduction to emotional literacy that never lectures, it became a New York Times number-one bestseller and spawned a whole series of board books, picture books and early readers. Lang writes the books with her husband, illustrator Max Lang, whose expressive comic animal cast gives them their warmth. Alongside her books she writes for animation, including scripts for the acclaimed Magic Light Pictures adaptations of Julia Donaldson's stories. Her work turns universal childhood moods into something genuinely funny and quietly reassuring for young children and the adults reading aloud.