Some Things Are Scary
Common Sense Note
The text is rather flat, but Feiffer's wickedly funny art provides the punch line and keeps kids chortling.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
The text was first published in the late 1960s, when the world was presumably a less scary place, and "getting hugged by someone you don't like" had a very different connotation than it does now. But it has been newly illustrated by Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and he brings the book to vibrant life, using the rather flat text as a foil for his wildly energetic drawings.
Feiffer is arguably our best cartoonist since Thurber. His style, first seen in children's books in the classic The Phantom Tollbooth, and more recently in I Lost My Bear (which he also wrote), consists of extremely fluid scribbles that combine in ways both warm and hilarious.
He is a master of both facial expression and body language (even the shadows tell a story, as in the illustration for "thinking you're not going to be picked for either side"). His pictures, mostly with watercolor washes or white space instead of extraneous and distracting background detail, focus on the people and their clearly felt emotions.
Feiffer's art can also be seen in Meanwhile, Bark, George, The Man in the Ceiling, and A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears.
Plot Summary:
Lots of things are scary to kids, from getting a shot to seeing strange-looking food on their plates. But growing up may be the scariest of all. Author Florence Parry Heide gives a list, some serious and some silly, of things that are scary, which cartoonist Jules Feiffer illustrates with wild exuberance.
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ViolenceA giant bird carrying away a boy might worry younger or more sensitive children. |
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