Some Things Are Scary

When cartoonist Jules Feiffer was little, he thought parents were scary. Florence Parry Heide's main fear was that she'd never learn how to be a real life grownup. (She never did, she says.) So, years later, these two star creators of children's books have teamed up to confront the things that go bump in the night (or day) in the splendid picture book Some Things Are Scary. This litany of frightfully familiar scenarios, brilliantly illustrated with Feiffer's scritchy, expressive cartoons, ranges from stepping on something squishy when you're in your bare feet to getting a shot to discovering that your hamster cage is empty. The encompassing fleshy arms of the woman in the depiction of "getting hugged by someone you don't like is scary" are positively smothering to behold. The rapidly moving arms (all seven of them) of the boy in "telling a lie is scary" image perfectly evokes the scittery discomfort of fibbing. Feiffer's distorted perspectives on the things that "loom large" capture a range of human emotion with his usual deftness. Kids will commiserate with the saucer-eyed boy as he skates out of control, is afraid he won't be picked for either team, or gets stuck high in a tree. And maybe things won't be so scary next time. (Ages 3 and older) --Karin Snelson