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Worries Go Away! ISBN: 9781444900163
Gray, Kes and Wildish, Lee
Published by Hodder Children's Books, 2014
This splendid picture book is about a little girl who finds that when she is worried about something, she retreats into a world inside her head. This is at first comforting because it's a lovely place with 'flowers and trees, there's birdsong and blue sky, there's honey and bees.' But then her worries start to come through in this idyllic place, and the begins to feel miserable. The worries turn into monsters and chase her in a really frightening way. Soon she has her back to a wall, a wall with a door and a keyhole through which she can see lots of people who love her and want to help: 'They've been trying to reach me. They've knocked and they've knocked, but the door to my world has always been locked.' The realisation comes that she is the key to this door and that if she talks to the people who care about her, then her misery can end. The pictures show us quite clearly the process the child must go through before finding her answer, and they are full of the most amazing pictures of her internal world and the monsters who take over there. The happiness at the end is full of light and air and sunshine, and we feel she will have her good ending. This is a lovely picture book, the illustrations perfectly conveying the sense of the rhythmic text, and it will provide comfort to those who are in the midst of serious concerns.
Age: 5+