one – has for years been happily settled on the lower half of Dad’s face. But when Dad – deliciously drawn in the style of Popeye – decides to shave it off, the beard makes a last-minute run for it, leaping off his face and landing, alarmingly, on the face of the baby. When Mum chases it away with her broom, the beard tries in vain to find a new place to settle – even at one point attaching itself to a reproduction of the Mona Lisa. And then the children’s bald uncle walks through their door . . . Nothing that is shown to be so ludicrous can possibly hold menace again.
SEE ALSO: grannies, having to kiss • nightmares
beastly, being
If you’re trying to convert a child inclined to be beastly into one that’s sweet and loving, give them a dose of Horton, Dr Seuss’s empathetic elephant.2 Horton is enjoying a splash in a cool jungle pool when he hears a noise and, in the absence of any other suitable source, concludes that it must have come from someone living on a speck of dust, invisible to the naked elephant eye. The other jungle animals think he’s gone completely nuts when he saves the speck from the water; but for Horton, this is the start of a great deal of worrying about this small ‘Who’ – who, it turns out, is not just one person but an entire community of ‘Whos’, complete with Who mayor. Once the beastly child has glimpsed the detailed community of Whos, hard at work trying to patch up their battered planet after a careless bird let it drop mid-flight, they, too, will start to worry about the Whos and, by extension, others (see: worrying). As Horton says, ‘After all,/A person’s a person. No matter how small.’
If this fails to inspire compassion, allow your out-and-out beast to sport with their own kind with Rotten Island, psychedelic home to a vile bunch of critters with extra limbs and unpleasant personalities. There’s nothing on Rotten Island but bad weather and violent volcanoes – all drawn in satisfyingly scratchy outlines and sloshed with garish colours. Until, that is, a flower dares to show its pretty face. A joyous celebration of ghastliness running amok, this book will satisfy the demand for beastliness in your household – and maybe even wear it out.
SEE ALSO: animals, being unkind to • contrary, being • manners, bad • naughtiness • share, inability to • sibling rivalry • tantrums • told, never doing what you’re
bed, fear of what’s under the
Unidentified creaks, wardrobe doors left ajar and, of course, that dark space beneath the bed . . . Turn the fear on its head with Bedtime for Monsters, which first acknowledges the fear (‘Supposing there are monsters . . .’), then looks it square in the face (‘He’s coming to find you – RIGHT NOW!’). Finally . . . well, who can be scared of a monster, however big and green, going ‘Ring a Ding Ding’ on his bicycle?
SEE ALSO: anxiety • dark, scared of the • scared, being
bed, having to stay in
Every bedridden child needs a copy of Marianne Dreams, capturing as it does so perfectly the associated feeling of being alone in a slightly unreal other world, marooned from family life. We never know exactly what’s wrong with Marianne when, on her tenth birthday, she develops a high fever and has to go to bed. She’s both ‘horrified and fascinated’ when the days become weeks. She’s visited each day by Miss Chesterfield, a governess, who tells her about the other children she teaches in their own homes, including Mark, who is ill with polio. But what really helps pass the time is the stubby pencil she finds in her great-grandmother’s old sewing box, which brings whatever she draws to life in her dreams.
The first time it happens, Marianne dreams she’s walking across a lonely prairie – when there, before her, is the house she drew earlier with the pencil. It’s a simple house with a square façade, four windows and a door. She tries to get in – but there’s no handle, and no knocker. Two days later, she picks up her drawing again. This time she adds a knocker – and a boy’s face at the window; and the next time she visits the house in her dreams, she meets the boy as well.
At times the story that follows feels like the hallucinations of someone slipping in and out of a fever. The boy in the house has polio, and is called Mark – just like Miss Chesterfield’s student. He’s also as sulky and irritable about being stuck in bed as Marianne is herself. Soon Marianne is so preoccupied with getting Mark back on his feet that she stops grumbling about how long it’s taking her to get back on hers. This story shows a child how the mind can travel to surprising places, even if the body can’t. And that one way to get better might be to focus on someone – or something – other than themselves.
SEE ALSO: bored, being • cheering up, needing • loneliness • rainy day
bed, not wanting to go to
It’s hard to go to bed when it’s still light outside and you’ve got energy left to burn – especially when other people in the house are still up. Make the duvet seem more appealing with a story that shows other lively creatures winding down.
THE TEN BEST BOOKS FOR TEMPTING A CHILD TO BED
