A Really Long, Semi- Anti-Climatic, Story About a Terrifying Book

Sawyer's preschool runs a cute, awesome, little program every winter, where the kids have to read ten books at home, write the info on snowballs, and bring them in to put on a class snowman bulletin board. When they’re done they get a hot chocolate and cookie party and every kid gets the same free book. This year it was A Bad Case of Stripes, by David Shannon, about a girl who turns colors after denying her love of lima beans (or something like that).

So on Monday by son came home telling me that he was terrified of the “rainbow book” his teacher read to the class and that when he woke up it was IN HIS CUBBY. At the time I had no idea that they had actually done the activity yet, so I sort of blew him off and told him we would figure it out on Tuesday. When I went in I forgot to mention it, but when I picked him up the teachers told me what had happened with the distribution the previous day and that he wouldn’t even go up to his cubby until they took the book out, which they did, and nicely replaced it with a much less-threatening Clifford book, putting the Shannon book in their class library. Now that I knew what book it was, I informed my poor little child that we actually had the book at home as well, specifically in his room. He made me promise to get rid of it and mentioned it a few more times that night, that he was scared of the book.

Fast-forward to Tuesday night when I put him to bed. He would barely talk and eventually I managed to get him to tell me what was wrong- he wanted that book out and I had forgotten when we got home. I promptly rectified the situation and told him the book was safely in my room. I thought the issue was over. It was most definitely not.

An hour later, Sawyer woke up sweating and shaking from a bad dream, which he had had about that damn book. He said he’d never go in my room again, since the book was in there (I told him I’d take it to work so it was out of the house, which I did) and that he wanted me to talk to his teacher so that they could turn the book around in the classroom library so he wouldn’t have to see the girl’s face as he walked to his cubby every day. I said we would and he went back to sleep.

Wednesday, when I dropped him off that morning, I explained the bad dream and rest of the situation to his teacher and he and I went to the classroom library to TURN IT AROUND. It was missing, which, instead of being reassuring, bothered him even more because he was worried it would resurface unexpectedly. Luckily, it did not, and he was able to get through his day.

In almost five years of life, my son’s biggest fear has been a book. He has even gone so far as to muse that when he dies he won't have to see it anymore (with a sly grin, though, so I'm not exactly putting a therapist on speed-dial). 

The end.