The Fun Book of Scary Stuff by Emily Jenkins (review)

Our narrator has followed his dad’s instructions to make a list of what scares him (“He says it will help me be brave”), and now he’s explaining the plan to his interested bull terrier and timid pug. Each spread explores a fear, with the cocky terrier demolishing them all (“I could take that guy,” he says assuredly about the feared shark in the swimming pool) until they get to the ultimate fear: the dark. Not so bold now, the pooch panics, but the boy bravely turns the light on and saves the doggy day. Jenkins takes a clever route through the topic of childhood fears: there’s plenty of witty, kid-friendly humor (“Your dad is weird,” says the terrier; “Tell me about it,” responds the boy wryly), while the dogs act as mouthpieces for both the confident and nervous voices inside the heads of youngsters negotiating their anxieties. Fanciful worries along with plenty of plausible everyday fears—there’s a mean crossing guard and big dogs as well as trolls and witches—address the vast range of possible scares for children. The book is cannily laid out, with main text introducing the concept and the monsters in chapter-type surtitles and the bulk of the words appearing in the lively speech balloons. The watercolor and pencil artwork has a light touch, with boy and dogs moving smoothly between the real foreground and the imagined terrors; the trip into the glossy black dark, illuminated only by canine eyes and canine comments, makes for a dramatic climax. Treating fears with humor is a great way to get them out into the open, and this could be a funny discussion-starter as well as a complement to Halloween spookiness.