Winner of the 2008 Kate Greenaway Award, this book is a complete delight! Little Mouse is afraid of an awful lot of things - creepy crawlies, monsters, knives, baths (he's afraid of being sucked down the plughole), loos, having 'accidents', loud noises, the dark, getting lost, birds, dogs and cats (of course). But in a nice twist at the end, he takes pride and comfort in the fact that the female of the house is afraid of him. It is the wonderful design of this book that is so remarkable. Chewed edges, collages, stains and holes proliferate. Even the front cover has a huge chewed hole through which Little Mouse peers. He writes his own fears on each page with a pencil that starts out far bigger than he is and gets smaller and smaller until it is nothing but a nub. At the top of each page we are given the proper word for each fear: ablutophobia for fear of bathing, etc. Emily Gravell, in a rather nice introduction, explains that everyone is afraid of something, and that these fears come from her own experience. She has also provided space on most of the pages for children to write or draw about their own fears. She has firmly put herself on the side of the child, and her imaginative and original art work will appeal greatly to an equally imaginative child. Superb!