Andi Green was a young artist of note
Who captured in paintings what she’d emote.
The emotions that swirled around in her head:
Happiness, anger and feelings of dread,
All would be realized there in her art
Whimsically rendered, all full of heart.
Then one day someone said to her face,
I’d love to see these on my child’s bookcase,
And thus was born her series of books
Written for children using rhyming for hooks.
The series was called the Worrywoo Monsters
And were filled with emotions made creatures to ponder.
The latest entry in this series for kids
Is all about worry and what it forbids.
Don’t Feed the WorryBug is this book’s title
And it is all fun and not for the idle.
The story concerns a monster named Wince,
The Monster of Worry and quite a prince.
This blue, long-eared creature spends all his time fretting
And his worries feed a bug nobody is petting.
As Wince’s worries grow larger and bigger
So too does the bug (which looks like a chigger).
Eventually Wince must deal with this issue
And here the book shines in the children’s book milieu.
The book ends on quite the positive note,
Something that parents would like to promote
To help their children deal with their worries
And allow them to live their childhood jollies
The art and the writing are perfectly fine
For a kid’s book or such along in this line.
The story panders just a slight bit
But in a kid’s book pandering is always a hit.
Andi Green is here doing something quite fun,
And her fans, by now, are surely legion.
In the future, perhaps, I would like to see
Ms. Green tackle topics with even more complexity,
Of emotions like lust, befuddlement, and ennui
For an adult audience, you know, someone like me.
But if you have a child whose head is all full of worries,
Don’t grab kiddy Xanax in such a hurry.
Why not give Don’t Feed the WorryBug a read first
And see if that won’t act like a nurse.
If you’d like, you can buy the book with a plush toy
Of Wince that’s all blue, perfect even for a boy.
I’m sorry.
I can’t keep this pretension up.
Rhyming is not my forte and abusing it like this make me feel like my brain is slowly leaking out of my ears.
Let me just end this review by saying that Don’t Feed the WorryBug by Andi Green is a perfectly nice, staid but true, children’s book on how to deal with stress. The fact that we live in a time that we need a children’s book designed to help children deal with stress is a whole separate rant, as I would love to know what we are doing as a society if we have stressed out kids.
The book is nice. The art is pleasant. Green’s rhymes are better than mine. The toy is cute. It’s all good.
No worries.
Daniel Elkin has been reading and commenting on comics since the mid 70’s. He also used to wear a great deal of brown corduroy. He lives in Northern California surrounded by Great Danes, a fact which he insists was never part of the plan. Daniel has worked in bars, restaurants, department stores, classrooms, and offices. He is a published poet, member of MENSA. He is also a committed father, gadfly, bon vivant, and can over-intellectualize just about anything.
P.S. He keeps a blog, Your Chicken Enemy.