Seize the Night

I have a five-year old daughter. As with any five-year old, she picks up random interests and fears as she sees fit. One week she will be outrageously into superheroes and will simply detest anything resembling a cape the week after. Her recent aversion has been--to my dismay-- of the dark. In order to coach her through this issue, I have utilized night lights and lava lamps galore. Since we use story time to decompress in the evening, however, I have also started incorporating "books of the nocturnal persuasion" into the regimen.

One of the first books I tried out to coax this fear away was Lemony Snicket's, "The Dark." The story follows a young boy, Laszlo, who cohabitates with "the dark." The boy doesn't mind the dark so long as it "stays put in its room", which, appropriately, is the basement. I love that the dark is like a banished little brother who is cast under the house. I think personifying the dark makes something that is easier to grapple with for a small child than an abstract notion. As luck would have it, Laszlo's night light burns out one evening. The dark beckons the boy into the basement and shows him to a drawer full of lightbulbs. After the conversation and light bulb exchange, Laszlo returns to his room and never faces the dark again. His fear is absolved from the interaction.

As I mentioned previously, I love that Snicket turns this fear into a palpable, conversational entity. The employment of personification turns this fear into something that can be literally confronted and cast away. The presentation in and of itself is whimsical and paired perfectly with Jon Klassen's simplistic illustrations.

I think this book would be a great tool for storytimes for grades K-3. After the presentation, one could ask the children to draw a picture of their fear and explain what sort of conversation they would have with this fear if it were, like the dark, approachable.