anne and I were debating once whether childrens' books on the subject of fear were unnecessarily amplifying the problem, creating fears where they may not have occurred naturally. I had just bought wee hayley campbell, age 3, a book titled Scroggy, the monster who was afraid of the dark. It was part of a series, each one a monster with a different fear. Scroggy (every time I bump into Dave Scroggy I can't help thinking of the monster. sorry, old pal) imagined he saw pink monsters lurking in the nighttime shadows. I thought there was an abstracting process at work, in which fear was removed from any real phenomena and could be isolated and discussed as a concept. One evening I was staring out of the window, frowning in the contemplation of some pressing problem, and the little one came up to me and took my hand and said 'There's no pink monsties, Dad.'

At the Page 45 event two weeks back Richard Chaney was showing me Emily Gravett's (no relation to Paul) Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears which he'd just bought for his son. I was so excited about it that he made me a gift of it and I was too absorbed in it to picture the poor wee lad whom I was dispossessing of a memorable and meaningful experience. Thanks, Richard, and I hope another copy comes to the little chap.

This really is a gorgeously illustrated book, full of tricks and devices and contraptions such as a fold-out map of the Isle of Fright. There are holes and chewed corners, and collages with actual stuck on bits. There is even some complicated word play, where phagophobia, the fear of swallowing is given as the fear of being eaten, and whereamiophobia is the fear of getting lost. Each page is titled with a phobia. This vortex of polaroids jointly illustrates both ablutophobia, the fear of bathing, and hydrophobia, the fear of water.


There is some great cartoon malarkey with feathers:


And the whole package ends with a page made to look like it has been torn out and is just hanging on, titled 'Bibliophobia (Fear of books)'
Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears won the Kate Greenaway Medal for 2008.
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Alison Bechdel on that moment, when a friend feels obliged to let you know that your book has just been remaindered. "I got an email from someone today letting me know that Fun Home has been remaindered at Daedalus Books, for the bargain price of $5.98. She meant this kindly, so I could inform my readers..."