"Herb loved storybooks."

A favorite around our house is Lauren Child and the Charlie and Lola series. I thought we should try another of her books and so we got Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Book? from the library. This is the story of Herb, a boy who doesn't take the best care of his books even though they are well-loved. One night, he falls asleep on his book and then he falls right into it!

First he meets Goldilocks who is very upset that he has invaded her story. Then he runs past Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel and Puss in Boots. Finally he reaches a fancy home where a party is going on. He has a series of run-ins and mishaps due to his mistreatment of the book -- cutting out pictures, drawing in moustaches and telephones and other things. When he finally gets out of the book he takes the time to repair and clean it and set everything straight again ... well, almost everything.

This is a cute book that would be good for a bit older kid than Z. He didn't enjoy a lot of the dialogue because it was confrontational and even sarcastic. I found it amusing, of course. The book is made to look like Herb has abused it, with a cup stain on one page that I could swear was made by Z! I was about to lecture him about how we treat our books until I started reading it with him and realized that the book damage was intentional and printed on the page. Silly me!

Taking care of our books so that they don't take care of us,
K and Z


Buy Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Book? on Amazon or find it at your local library.