The Scared Book

Description

It's story time, but this book has bad news - as soon as it realises there are monsters in it, it's too scared to tell you the rest of the story! Can you help it feel better? It needs you to rub away its goosebumps, blow away the giant butterflies in its tummy, and fan away the yucky smell the monsters have left behind. A fun and quirky interactive story, with distinctive and stylish illustrations from an innovative young illustrator and muralist.

Debra Tidball (Author) Debra Tidball is a picture book author, social worker, blogger and children's book reviewer. She lives in suburban Sydney with her family, her dog, her cat, two guinea pigs, some chooks and a donkey. Kim Siew (Illustrator) Kim Siew is an illustrator and muralist who works under the name of Akisiew ("a-kiss-u"). She has a love of line, flat graphic colour, storytelling and pattern. She has been exhibiting her work both on and off the streets since 2010. She sells prints, zines and original artwork on Etsy. Her mediums of choice are house paint, found wood, fine tip pen, pencil and collaged paper. She also runs workshops for children, using paper art to tell stories. Kim lives in Sydney's Inner West.

The Scared Book is, as its title suggests, about a frightened book that's been infiltrated by a variety of monsters on its pages and begs for help from the reader to scare them away. Debra Tidball keeps the instructions simple enough for pre-schoolers to join in the action: 'There's a tingle in my spine/can you scratch it for me?', 'Giant butterflies are tickling my insides! Please blow them away' and 'Argh monsters!/Quick, flick them away!'. The range of action words in the book-which also include 'blow', 'shake', 'trace', 'fan' and 'rub'-are good for vocabulary-building and the ending offers readers a sense of achievement, having chased all the monsters away. This is a book that will be read over and over once the little ones understand what they have to do. The monsters themselves are brightly coloured with stripes and spots and many eyes, but Kim Siew's illustrations are more weird than genuinely scary. There's often a large expanse of white space around the pictures and text, so despite all the marauding creatures the book doesn't feel too cluttered. Reminiscent of Herve Tullet's Press Here, this interactive book is a fun reading experience that even reluctant readers won't be able to resist. - Books and Publishing