turns to a distressed squawking, the rabbits startle, sniff the air, then bolt like blazes in the other direction.
When a sign goes up in their field announcing a new building development, Fiver senses that something ‘very bad’ is going to happen – and he tells his brother, Hazel. Hazel has learnt to listen to his brother’s presentiments; and that very night they split ranks with the heads of the warren and lead any other rabbit that will listen to a new, safe home. Fiver’s sixth sense saves the rabbits again and again on their journey – and ultimately brings them to the high, dry downs where they can see for miles around.
Many of the rabbits are prone to panic; but they also make the most of the strengths bestowed on them by Fritha, their creator, in the stories of long ago. ‘Digger, listener, runner,’ the incantation goes – and whenever they’re threatened by one of their ‘thousand enemies’, they put their skills to use, digging burrows, listening for danger, and running to safety. Give this story to the nervous child in your midst and prompt them to notice their own special strengths. They may not be able to stop their anxiety, but their strengths will help them to live more successfully with it.
SEE ALSO: depression • worrying
apocalypse, fear of the
Teens worried about the end of civilised life as they know it will find comfort – and a great role model for how to survive – in Robinson Crusoe.8 The apocalypse may be a long time coming, though, and imagining worst-case scenarios with the help of a good dystopian novel will keep them on their toes as they wait, while also encouraging them to appreciate what they’ve (still) got.
THE TEN BEST DYSTOPIAN READS
SEE ALSO: anxiety • planet, fearing for the future of the • worrying
appendicitis
SEE: The Novel Cure
arguments, getting into
Not all arguments occur because someone’s in a bad mood, but it certainly makes an argument more likely. In the brilliant little The Quarreling Book, we see how bad moods can be passed, like fire, from one person to the next. It all kicks off when Mr Brown forgets to kiss Mrs Brown before he leaves for work. Mrs Brown then snaps at son Jonathan when he comes down for breakfast, who in turn snaps at sister Sally, who snaps at her best friend . . . and so on until, inevitably, it’s somebody’s dog that gets it in the teeth. The good-natured dog, of course, just thinks it’s all a big game, which starts a counter-domino-effect of good moods going in the opposite direction. Arnold Lobel’s black-and-white illustrations capture the changing moods with the tiniest of lines – a mouth turned down on one side, a hurt eye widening. Read this one to the whole fractious family; then go and buy yourselves a dog.
If your child seems determined to pick fights, at least make sure they do it with a sense of humour. The extended family in Helen Cresswell’s wonderful Ordinary Jack and the other Bagthorpe Saga books are great role models for inveterate quarrellers, with mealtimes usually beginning with everyone talking at once and ending with the slamming of doors. The elderly matriarch, Grandma, is the ringleader, liking nothing better than throwing a pointed jibe, and she’s disappointed when it fails to stick. Mr Bagthorpe and his brother-in-law, Uncle Parker, have so many ‘first-class rows’ that Jack suspects they enjoy them, too – and he’s noticed that many of their interchanges turn up ‘pretty well word for word’ in his father’s TV scripts. Luckily, Grandpa’s tendency to make sudden, irrelevant statements – finishing a train of thought he started in his head – tends to throw an argument off course before it can get too savage. And if that doesn’t work, five-year-old cousin Daisy’s newfound habit of playing with matches underneath the table does (see: pyromania).
Dare we cast the aspersion that teenagers are frequently the cause of arguments in the home (see: adolescence; hormones, raging)? To help both teens and their haggard grown-ups get through these rocky years, bring in the hilarious The Book of the Banshee. Written by one Will Flowers from the ‘Front line’ of family life, it opens with the announcement that his sister Estelle has ‘curdled’ – i.e. become a teenager – and that suddenly it’s like sharing a home with an apprentice witch. The arguments begin at 7am, with diatribes about why school is pointless, and take up so much of everyone’s time and energy that Will ends up having to leave the house without his lunch money – and with only a hastily put-together piccalilli or salad-cream sandwich instead. The day ends with more arguments, these ones about why she can’t wear what she’s wearing and why she can’t stay out till 1am.
Meanwhile, Will finds a strange sort of comfort in a First World War memoir called The Longest Summer by a man named Saffery. In it he finds remarkable parallels between his own home life and Saffery’s experiences on the Front lines of northern France. When Will’s father comes upstairs to have words with Estelle, it’s just like the brave lads going over the top. And when Will’s little sister Muffy tucks her head into Will’s dressing gown in fear of Estelle, it’s as if she fears being hit by shells flying overhead. Before long, the military atmosphere has ratcheted up to such a point that Will decides he must take a proactive stand. He gains valuable ground and self-respect in
