Post by Mark T. Locker.

Being a kid is both awesome and awesomely horrific. From an adult perspective, we recognize the wonderful liberation children have from work, bills, stress. But on the flip side, being a kid is rough. For one thing, relatively minor, if not downright harmless things can be terrifying; darkness, spooky stories, chestnuts. So here are two books about confronting childhood fears and overcoming them.

Willoughby and the Moon by Greg Foley.

Young Willoughby relies on the moon to illuminate his bedroom at night. Inexplicably, the moon seems to be getting smaller by the day. Suddenly, the moon disappears completely. When Willoughby opens his closet door, he discovers he is on the moon and in the company of a giant silvery snail looking for his ball. Willoughby is scared of the dark, the snail is scared of everything else. Somehow between the two they learn that none of that stuff is really worth getting worked up over.

The Scariest Thing of All by Deb Gliori.

This little rabbit is scared of everything, from reasonable things like these trolls which, in this book, are totally real, to chestnut pods which are also real but an unreasonable thing to fear. Through a dubious leap of logic, the rabbit realized that he is the scariest thing in the world and all these monsters are afraid of him. I don’t like this book; it’s too cutesy and moronic. My kid makes me read it nearly every day. Maybe you will have the same fortune.