Scared? Who Me? (I'm Not Scared! - Jonathan Allen)

Member Name: abbadabbado

Product:	I'm Not Scared! - Jonathan Allen
Date:	01/07/09 (83 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a great way to reassure children it's ok to be scared

Disadvantages: paperback could get ruined easily

We recently received a book start pack as part of my daughter's two year check. Included in the pack are always some books, and we received I'm Not Scared by Jonathon Allen. I had read reviews of another of his titles featuring a cute little owl in the past so I was quite pleased to get this title. My health visitor told me what a lovely book it was as I was flicking through it, and how right she was as we found out when we started reading it.

I'm Not Scared is about a little owl who wandered through the woods in the night with his little teddy owl. The creatures of the night scare him when he sees them but he insists he's not scared all through the book, until his Daddy finds him and tucks him up in bed.
The concept is quite basic, but when you read the book you see that there are many underlying messages to the book for children reading it.

As the main character is an owl, it immediately screams at you that the book will be nocturnal as owls come out at night, so this is a good starting point to introduce night owls to children as they may not have previously come across many before.
Through the book owl obviously meets more nocturnal animals such as badger, bat, and bear. Each animal tells little owl not to be scared and tries to reassure him. Poor owl always insists he's not scared, it's just his little teddy owl who is scared, as after all owls are night time animals so they are supposed to be out at night.

Each page features large illustrations and minimal text which is nice to be able to elaborate on with children as you read. Despite it being night time in the book and all the colours focusing on darker colours, there are plenty of splashes of bright colours in the form of owl and his teddy bear.
As with many children's books there is repetition on each page. This book sees owl repeating the same phrase of "I'm Not Scared" on each page. As an adult it's easy to see owl is trying to convince himself rather than the animals, but it is good to be able to explain to children that it's ok to be scared and everyone gets scared even in their most natural environments.

Right at the end of the book Daddy owl comes to find baby and takes him home to bed as the sun is coming up which means it's time for owls to be in bed. My daughter found this amusing even though I'm sure she doesn't quite understand the concept of why an animal would go to bed during the day just yet. As she gets older I think this book will help her understand the nocturnal world.

I love this book and we read it at least once a day, purely for the cuteness aspect of the owl. I think at two years old my daughter is at the prime age to be able to feed information to her that she won't understand just yet, but when it clicks in her brain, it'll open up a whole new way of telling this story as I'm able to delve deeper into the story and elaborate on the animals and why they're out at night.

You can buy this book in a paperback or board book version. My copy is paperback, and has a fairly strong cover, but the pages are quite weak for a toddler, so I would recommend keeping this one out of reach or buy the board book version.
It's available on Amazon for £5.24.
ISBN: 978-1905417285
Published: 2008

Summary: A great book for children.