Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears

I am obsessed with this. I love the interactive pages, and the way different fears are portrayed. This is a great way to talk about fears with young children, especially in the end, where Little Mouse realizes that even though she thinks she's afraid of everything, someone is actually afraid of her.

What a wonderful discovery Emily Gravett is! This highly original book, with it's pages cut out with keyholes and gnarled edges and colouring that were lovingly achieved by having real-life mice *do their thing* on paper is a real delight. Little Mouse takes us through a self-help book that lists various phobias and encourages the reader (meaning Little Mouse) to fill in the page with drawings and impressions to highly amusing effect. It's easy to see why this book won a prestigious award. Many thanks go to Kerry (avatiakh) for introducing me to this illustrator/author. A great gift idea for lovers of children's literature.

The detail put into the construction of this book is phenomenal! Little mouse has many fears, some that many people can relate to. I would use it in the classroom as a way of talking about our fears and how we can overcome them. As the book says "A fear faced is a fear defeated."

Is there a name for the fear of fold-out and pop-up books getting ruined?

Little Mouse is afraid of many things: spiders, shadows, knives, and cats, of course. He draws pictures of them all in this "journal" of fears. But at least there's one thing that's always afraid of him.

This is a very clever book. The story isn't complicated; each page is a different fear with minimal story-text. I thought it unusual that a children's book would have the names and definitions for various phobias (such as arachnophobia for fear of spiders) at the top of each page, something my 14 year-old found more interesting than my 6 year-old. But where the story was kind of a "miss," the artwork was a "hit." Some of the pages have holes or edges that have been show more "chewed" by the mouse. There are photos and newspaper clippings taped in the book, including a fold-out map (which I thought was England but turned out to be the shape of a mouse). It was this more than the story which attracted my children's attention.

I'm not a fan of the pop-up and fold-out type of book because they generally don't last well. I've already noticed that the edges of the hole on the dust jacket catch on things and are going to tear eventually. But this really is a cute and clever book. I don't know that it would be helpful in any way for fearful or worrisome children, but it might be entertaining. show less

Brilliant for the right audience. Not so much for happy families, and not so much for fans of Scaredy Squirrel. Darker, more dramatic, more artsy, with lots of legitimate fears, and their scientific names, catalogued.
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I thought that maybe after a few years it'd click for me. But I still think that it has limited appeal, and I admire it significantly more than I enjoy it. In fact, this time I'm rounding down from 3.5.

Little mouse shares his voluminous catalog of fears, and gives readers permission to write and draw about their fears. Subtle humor in the mixed-media illustrations lightens the dark tone.

Visually and tactile-y interesting with cutouts and fold-out flaps and a map, Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears is indeed a list of everything the little mouse is afraid of, complete with phobia names at the top of the page (mostly real, but there was also whereamiphobia, fear of getting lost). It ends with a twist: "I'm afraid of nearly everything I see. But even though I'm very small...she's afraid of me!" [Picture of a woman's feet standing on a chair, the mouse holding his chewed-up pencil stub below]