The Dark (Bccb Blue Ribbon Picture Book Awards (Awards))

I recommend you read this book to your self first then prep the little one before reading it to her/him. I took my mini person outside in the dark (carried her) and got her to say hello to the dark, hello to the stars etc (she thought that was great fun). Then I took her to bed and read the book to her. She was transfixed but loved it. We would then go to the closet and the basement and say hello to the dark there too. Its a great book because it doesnt sugar coat the fact that the dark will always be there so you have to learn to live with it as opposed to making it go away with a light bulb or something.

I was hoping for the wickedly funny Snicket, but got the mysteries of life Snicket, which is less appealing to a parent who might want to reread the book to kids (as we do with the Latke book every year). I don't know how well the book would play with very young children.

Another great book from Lemony Snicket. It's pretty short and sweet and simple but very clever and well put together. The illustrations are great and work incredibly well with the story. A great book to read to your kid at night!

This was a very awesome Book! the artwork is done really well and the story is perfect for kids afraid of the dark! if you have a young child afraid to sleep because they afraid of the dark Get THIS BOOK!

I am a huge fan of "unconventional" kids books. Think John Klassen and Oliver Jeffers and you get the idea. I love the fact that these authors don't talk down to kids in a condescending way. They tell them that, "Yes, there are scary things out in the world. Here is how to deal with them."

The Dark by Lemony Snicket does the same thing. It tells the story of a kid that is scared of the dark. Like all children do, he pushes himself just to the point of comfort when he says hello to the dark every morning when it has retreated to the corner of the basement. Then one night, the dark pays the boy a visit in his room.

I won't spoil the rest of the book, but it really is a great read. My (almost) six year old daughter has chanted "The Dark, The Dark" every night since I bought the book. I personally think it's because this book teaches kids that somethings that are scary looking can be quite harmless, once you get to know it better.

This was such a cute book! I absolutely loved it. Definitely one that I will be buying when I have kiddos, but also as gifts for my friends kids.

The storyline was adorable! At first it was a bit spooky, but soon it was upbeat and happy. There is one page that has much more text than the others that was typical Lemony Snicket style. Of course I loved this page the most.

My favorite element of this book was the author bio at the end, which stated:
LEMONY SNICKET has been accused of leaving his readers in the dark. He is the author of numerous books, including those in A Series of Unfortunate Events and All the Wrong Questions.

Gosh, I love the Lemony Snicket persona SO much. I think it is so clever!

The dark is a very interesting thing. There’s a lot of it when the light is off, as young Laszlo finds out when his night light bulb fails. Then the dark comes into his room. Prior to this event, the dark lived quite happily in (unsurprisingly) dark places such as the basement, drawers that no one ever opened, and occasionally behind the shower curtains. At night the dark had a huge expanse to roam outside the creaky old house where they both lived. Laszlo and the dark respected each other’s space. The dark knew Laszlo and Laszlo knew the dark—in fact they even greeted each other. Well, the dark didn’t actually answer back. It never spoke until one fateful night when the bulb in Laszlo’s night light fails. The dark calls to Laszlo. Then Laszlo gets out of bed and answers the dark, which leads him all the way down to the basement…

This deceptively simple illustrated story is especially relevant for kids who are afraid of the dark. Who can say they didn’t fear something that lived under the bed, behind the door (no, that was never an old dressing gown!), or at the bottom of the stairs? This book depicts the dark and the fears of a little boy who has to learn that everything has its designated place and purpose. Without the dark there is no light. Without the night there is no day. Without the dark we would never see the moon and the stars. Without all the things in Laszlo’s house, providing hiding places for the dark, there would be no dark. And the dark is a necessary part of life. The size of the book, 11x7.1 inches is actually the perfect size for little hands to grasp. In addition, the dark looks very big (there’s a lot of it, as I said) while Laszlo looks very small, creating a huge contrast between them. The story has mystery, shivers, scary bits, and leads the young reader all the way down to the basement, where the dark turns out to be very helpful indeed. I’d recommend this for all young readers and their parents (who might still be afraid of the dark). It is a charming tale by the inimitable Lemony Snickett, beautifully illustrated by Jon Klassen. Five stars.

Two amazing, talented "greats" of the children's storybook world team up together to give us a book that takes on one of the most common childhood fears....The Dark.

Written in short sentences, filled full of suspense and anticipation this book will have your child not only confront that fear, but come to terms with it and finally, embrace it.

"You might be afraid of the dark, but the dark is not afraid of you. That's why the dark is always close by."

"Lazlo is afraid of the dark. The dark lives in the same house as Lazlo. Mostly, though, the dark stays in the basement and doesn't come into Lazlo's room. But one night it does."

Lazlo in his powder blue pajamas always has his trusty friend, the flashlight with him....just in case. The night his nightlight burns out he is forced to face his deepest fears. Lazlo then takes his flashlight and goes on a conquest which leads him right into the presence of Darkness itself. Snicket personifies Darkness giving it a voice and characteristics and it calls out to Lazlo, "I want to show you something." Lazlo musters up all the courages within him and clinging onto his trusty flashlight he follows Darkness into the black, scary basement where Darkness lives. While there he makes a discovery that puts his mind at ease and comes to the realization that Darkness is not to be feared after all.

"Darkness is not afraid of you. The darkness is a necessary component of the universe, not least of all because, if there is no darkness, how would you ever know if you needed a light bulb. " Such words of wisdom to ponder.

Jon Klassan ( a Canadian, I might add...yea) uses gouache and digital tools which work perfectly with Snickety's sparse text. His colour pallet is subdued and the black, the blackest black, ever. The glare of Lazlo's flashlight cuts through that black giving comfort to the reader and renders hope. It is a fabulous book that will surely become a classic.

I love the last page where you see little Lazlo playing with a few of his toys as the sun is setting and his flashlight is nowhere to be seen. He has finally conquered his fear of the dark.

My first thought on seeing the cover and the words 'The Dark by Lemony Snicket' was, "Ho! This is going to be another crazy, funny, Snickety kind of book." But wow, it wasn't. Nothing crazy here. A lovely, lean, taut piece of writing. Smart and ominous. And so original. Who would've thought to personify `The Dark'? Snicket, who else! Though the fact that he's surprised me is no surprise and, happily, the ending does have a snicker-worthy twist to it.

Laszlo is afraid of the dark; the dark lives in the same house as Laszlo. You're pulled along beautifully and the pacing is perfect.

Sometimes the dark hid in the closet.
Sometimes it sat behind the shower curtain.
But mostly it spent its time in the basement.
All day long the dark would wait in a distant
corner, far from the squeaks and rattles of
the washing machine, pressed up against some
old, damp boxers and a chest of drawers nobody
ever opened. At night, of course, the dark went
out and spread itself against the windows and
doors of Laszlo's house.

....Laszlo thought that....maybe the dark wouldn't
come visit him in his room. But one night - it did.

"Laszlo," the dark said, in the dark......

..."I want to show you something," said the dark.

Elegant. Creepy. It has you wondering how Laszlo will deal with the dark, but it's the dark who deals with Laszlo. The dark gives the boy something useful and rather sweet to help him live with its shady, impalpable self.

By the time Laszlo got back into bed,
the dark was no longer in his room...

...The dark kept on living with Laszlo,
but it never bothered him again.

A really nice book. Can you tell I'm a Snicket fan? If there is only one minor flaw it's that the solution is perhaps not the best ultimate solution, but hey, I like it anyway.

Although this is a picture book, personally I feel it is suitable for slightly older readers - reception age, or even older. Laszlo lives in a large house, where the dark lurks, even in the daytime. The dark hides in the cupboard, behind the shower curtain and mostly in the basement. Then, one night, the dark visits Laszlo in his bedroom and wants to show him something - does he dare to visit the basement at night? Now, you can view this book as creepy and, indeed, the illustrations are a little scary in places - but then, many children do find the dark frightening. However, I think that this is a very reassuring read indeed. I read this to a group of four and five year olds and they really enjoyed discussing it. As the book says, "You might be afraid of the dark but the dark is not afraid of you." Once children learn to understand why they are afraid of something, it becomes less scary and I would not hesitate to recommend this book to any parent whose child was afraid of the dark. If, however, you think this might be too frightening, there is "Darkness Slipped In," by Ella Burfoot for younger children, or "The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark," by Jill Tomlinson for older children who need reassurance.

I initially grabbed this one because of my love for Mr. Snicket; I’ll read anything by him that I can get my hands on, and I was excited to get a head start on sharing him with my son (who’s still too young for A Series of Unfortunate Events). The art in this book is impressive; I’ve never before seen so much black ink on a page. The “dark” permeates this book, making Laszlo’s flashlight beam shine brilliantly and causing the shadows to seem as sinister as they’re meant to. I thought my toddler might be a bit frightened (he’s not too keen on entering dark rooms by himself), but he really enjoyed it and has since requested it multiple times. This might not be the best choice for kids who scare easily — it’s really fairly tame, but the dark is made to seem a bit ominous at first — but it ultimately points out that the dark isn’t nearly as frightening as it may seem. In fact, it may mean us well.

The Dark is an illustrated story revolving around a child who is afraid of the dark so does what he can to make the dark like him when he encounters it in parts of the house in the day so it won't visit him when he's in bed at night. I really liked the tale up until the end, it had an overcoming fear lesson while at the same time creepy sort of entertaining vibe to it making it fun to read. The reading level also changes for one page, for the most parts it's a simple couple of sentences per page, sometimes spoken dialogue. (Review contains spoilers from this point on). Then we get to one lengthy page of text where the dark explains about, well the dark, and compares the dark to the roof, a window, a shower curtain and other things. That info from the dark is good but maybe it could have been interrupted by the boy and spread over a lot more pages. But what I think let this book down was the ending the dark leads the boy to discover a lightbulb, which makes no sense as his room has a nightlight plugged into the wall with a lightbulb in it and you would also assume probably a lightbulb in the ceiling. Not to mention he has a torch beside his pillow that would interrupt the dark in the same way switching on a lightbulb would. I just found I was disappointed by the ending after expecting so much from the rest of the tale.

The illustrations by Jon Klassen are simple but very well done. If you haven't done so you should click out his classic book I Want My Hat Back.

This little book is a real page turner. Laszlo is afraid of the dark. We see him going from place to place in the house staring worriedly into nooks and crannies where the dark hides. He sleeps with a nightlight and a flashlight. The illustrations are simple but clearly increase the reader's discomfort about the dark.

One night the dark calls him further and further and further through the house into the spooky basement. Tension builds. At the last moment, the child learns the importance of dark. I think this part could have been done much better.

Then the dark tells him to open the bottom drawer and get a bright yellow bulb from a drawer full of bulbs. I honestly didn't get it. He already has a nightlight. His bedroom looks no different at the ending than it did at the beginning. I don't know why he just didn't have the flashlight at the beginning without a nightlight and then find a nightlight with the bulbs in the drawer. That would've been clearer and made more sense.

I know this book has received great reviews but I found it too confusing to recommend it.

The Dark by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Jon Klassen.

Summary: Laszlo is afraid of the dark, the dark actually being a character in the story. Laszlo tries to avoid the dark as much as possible. While the dark hides in the basement by day, it comes creeping through the house at night. One night it comes into Laszlo’s room and calls to him. Laszlo follows it into the basement, where it leads him to a dresser whose bottom drawer contains light bulbs. Once Laszlo has a light bulb for his night light, the dark recedes, and from then on, Laszlo never fears the dark again.

Pros: This seems like a great book to help kids deal with fears. Plus, the illustrations are an amazing array of light and dark. Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen make an interestingly unusual team.

Cons: There’s a potential creepiness factor with the dark that some kids could find scary.

The Dark by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Jon Klassen
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2013
Fantasy, perhaps
40 pages
Recommended for grades 1+

You know I was excited to get this bad boy. Snicket, Klassen, I love them. The dark...not so much. I can totally relate to Lazlo here. When the lights flicker and the power goes out I...freeze. Like a weirdo I don't move a muscle, waiting for the lights to snap back on. I blame it on too many horror movies in high school and college. But this simple text brings us to the dark being a living entity, sharing a large creaky house with Lazlo and his family, although we never meet the family.
Reading this to my third graders one shouted out, this is scary, little kids shouldn't read this! Hehe, I love it when a kid gets so wrapped up in a story. But in all fairness, Snicket and Klassen did a fine job at brining the creep factor to this book. And in the end...well, you'll just have to read to find out what happens in the end!

I really like the illustrations. They remind me of older cartoons. I love the sketchy look to them. This is a pretty unusual book. The dark is actually a character and it talks to Laszlo. The book gets a little creepy because the dark wants Laszlo to go to the basement but it turns around very fast and you see the dark only wants to help him. I love the voice Lemony Snicket gives this story! I like Lazslo a lot. He represents every young child, boy or girl, afraid of the dark. I also like that he is in a one-piece pajama suit. :) I think kids 3+ and Lemony Snicket fans would LOVE this book!

*NOTE I reviewed my own copy of this book I got at a book sale.

I appreciate that Lemony Snicket didn't try to make this story longer than it needed to be. It was a very quick read, but only because it is on a level that absolutely any reader can enjoy. The art has a very neat vintage appeal to it and the story is dark enough to be creepy for adults, and relatable enough for children to enjoy.

Lemony Snicket who is known best for his dark humor in A Series of Unfortunate Events has a new picture book that is even darker. The Dark is the story of a little boy named Laszlo. Laszlo is afraid of the dark. He notices all the places in the house that the dark hides. One night the dark lures Laszlo out of bed and into the basement where he will make a discovery.
Lemony Snicket's style is always very popular and I have no doubt that this book will find an audience. It will be especially good for children ages 6-7 who are not ready to read the Series of Unfortunate Events books but want to read something by this author.
The illustrations were very well done and unique. They were done in gouache and digitally. This gave the pictures a very unique look.

This review and more like it can be found at [...]

4 Reasons that you should own “The Dark”

I have a set of rules that I abide by when choosing a book to read. One is that the first page must draw me in. The second rule is that the title cannot have the word “darkness” in it—this helps me avoid a LOT of bad literature—mostly bad sci-fi and fantasy. But for “The Dark,” a short illustrated children's story, by Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen, I make an exception. And here are the reasons that you should too.

Reason 1: Laszlo must face the dark, and find what lies within.
“The Dark” is a short story about a little boy who has a truce with the Dark. Laszlo will visit the Dark in its basement during the day to say hello, if only the Dark will stay out of his room at night. This all changes when Laszlo's night-light goes out, and the Dark calls for him to come to the basement.

Reason 2: The dark is scary.
Reading “The Dark,” I was instantly transported back to my childhood—of running from the uninvited house guest, tucking my feet beneath the cover so they could not be grabbed, of closing all the doors where the dark could hide, and shutting the curtains from where the dark watched me. The poetic language and the illustration take you back to that time, but they make no effort to scare you in the least. This creates an eerie but safe nostalgia that is simultaneously very appropriate to read to even younger children.

Reason 3: There are many hidden things to find in the dark.
Every time I re-read “The Dark” I find new meaning for what the Dark actually represents. And while this may be easier to detect for adults, I have little doubt that children will be able to discover the subtle themes of bravery in the face of fear, a search for knowledge in the unknown, and a solution to fear through kindness and understanding of what we deem “scary.” That “without the dark, everything would be light, and you would never know if you needed a lightbulb.”

Reason 4: The dark is a work of art.
I am not at a place where I have the physical room to collect the works of art that inspire me. Nor do I have the time to pour through the many poems that I'd like to. But owning a physical copy of this children's book is like owning a little piece of both—and I can pull it out and refresh my writing any time I need to.

So go out, or go online, and buy a copy of The Dark. It's a lovely story that I will be reading often for the rest of my life, and to any younger children who love the magic of stories.

Originally posted at https://www.facebook.com/JosephBlakeParker
And: http://josephblakeparker.wix.com/theblake

I am impressed that the story allowed the child to resolve his own fear. Teaching/allowing children to think for themselves (he knew where the light was) and be independent (he went into the dark to obtain the light) will grow their character into a whole person. The step by step process to over come his fear and to resolve his light issue was true genius.

What every children's book strives to be. Fun, just a little bit off, insightful. Having bought it for my 3 and 7 year old grand children I carefully submitted it for mom's approval pre-Christmas morning. It received rave reviews from her and from the little ones over the weeks that followed.

Lazlo was afraid of the dark, until, one night, it guided him through the house to find a light within a drawer to plug into the wall in his room. Lazlo found out that the dark may be full of shadows, but it also can be a friend. Children, ages 3-6, will learn to like the dark while walking with Lazlo through this story.

I was drawn by the author and interesting cover. I was not disappointed! Great new perspective for thinking of the dark. It will surely entertain and help children with fears of the dark. Beautiful visually as well! I never regret purchasing a Lemony Snicket book!

This book was pretentious. It seemed like something "cool" that some hipsters patted themselves on the back about. The child was nothing but a pawn, lacking personality from beginning to end. Especially annoying was the page that had four paragraphs of writing, whereas the other pages only had a sentence or two. The conclusion that this page draws is the typical downtalk to kids -- "without a shower curtain, you would splash water all over the bathroom, and without the dark, everything would be light, and you would never know when you needed a lightbulb." My kids, and pretty much all other kids, have enough of a bulls*** detector to tell when someone is just talking nonsense.

The illustrations were interesting, but they didn't further the story. They didn't provide anything extra for kids or parents to notice. All they did was say, "Wow. I'm a really cool illustrator. Let's do a book where you can't see anything other than what's illuminated by the flashlight. That'd be cool."

This review probably sounds judgmental and rude, but I'm not trying to be a jerk for the sake of being a jerk. I'm really passionate about kids' books, and my kids are too. The book doesn't have anything that kids would actually relate to. Kids don't say 'hi' to the dark, they go to their parents for comfort. This book doesn't have any parents, just some omniscient voice on that page with all the paragraphs on it that I mentioned. That page is consistent with the rest of the book in that it treats the dark like a person who is always waiting just around the corner, which seems pretty creepy to me. If anything, this book makes the dark even spookier than it really is -- the voice of the dark is described as being creaky, cold, and simultaneously right next to and far away from Laszlo. It's calling to him through the dark house, beckoning him to come closer and even closer.

The illustrations themselves are wonderful. It's just that they don't mesh with or enhance a story that goes nowhere.

You do not know the temptation I am fighting right now to begin this review with some grandiose statement equating a fear of the dark with a fear of death itself. You have my full permission to slap me upside the head if I start off my children's books reviews with something that bigheaded. The whole reason I was going to do it at all is that after reading a book like Lemony Snicket's The Dark I find myself wondering about kids and their fears. Most childhood fears tap into the weird id (see, here I go) part of our brains where the unknown takes on greater and grander evils than could possibly occur in the real world. So we get fears of dogs, the color mauve, certain dead-eyed paintings, fruit, and water going down the drain (or so Mr. Rogers claimed, though I've never met a kid that went that route), etc. In the light of those others, a healthy fear of the dark makes perfect sense. The dark is where you cannot see and what you cannot see cannot possibly do you any good. That said, there are surprisingly few picture books out there that tackle this very specific fear. Picture books love to tackle a fear of monsters, but the idea of handling something as ephemeral as a fear of the dark is much much harder. It takes a certain kind of writer and a certain kind of illustrator to grasp this fear by the throat and throttle it good and sound. Behold the pairing of Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen. You'll ne'er see the like again (unless they do another picture book together, in which case, scratch that).

"You might be afraid of the dark, but the dark is not afraid of you." Laszlo is afraid but there's not much he can do about it. Seems as though the dark is everywhere you look sometimes. Generally speaking it lives in the basement, and every morning Laszlo would open the door and say, "Hi . . . Hi, dark." He wouldn't get a reply. Then, one night, the dark does something unprecedented. It comes into Laszlo's room and though he has a flashlight, it seems to be everywhere. It says it wants to show him something. Something in the basement. Something in the bottom drawer of an old dresser. Something that helps Laszlo just when he needs it. The dark still visits Laszlo now. It just doesn't bother him.

There is nothing normal about Lemony Snicket. When he writes a picture book he doesn't go about it the usual route. Past efforts have included The Composer Is Dead which effectively replaced ye olde stand-by Peter and the Wolf in terms of instrument instruction in many a fine school district. Then there was 13 Words which played out like a bit of experimental theater for the picture book set. I say that, but 16 copies of the book are currently checked out of my own library system. Besides, how can you not love a book that contains the following tags on its record: "cake, depression, friendship, haberdashery, happiness"? Take all that under consideration and The Dark is without a doubt the most normal picture book the man has attempted yet. It has, on paper anyway, a purpose: address children's fear of the dark. In practice, it's more complicated than that. More complicated and better.

Snicket does not address a fear of the absence of light by offering up the usual platitudes. He doesn't delve into the monsters or other beasties that may lurk in its corners. The dark, in Snicket's universe, acts almost as an attentive guardian. When we look up at the night sky, it is looking back at us. In Laszlo's own experience, the dark only seeks to help. We don't quite understand its motivations. The takeaway, rather, is that it is a benign force. Remove the threat and what you're left with is something that exists alongside you. Interestingly it almost works on a religious level. I would not be the least bit surprised if Sunday school classes started using it as a religious parable for death. Not its original purpose but on the horizon just the same.

It is also a pleasure to read this book aloud. Mr. Snicket's words require a bit of rereading to fully appreciate them, but appreciate you will. First off, there's the fact that our hero's name is Laszlo. A cursory search of children's books yields many a Laszlo author or illustrator but nary a Laszloian subject. So that's nice. Then there's the repetition you don't necessarily notice at the time (terms like "creaky roof" "smooth, cold windows") but that sink in with repeated readings. The voice of the dark is particularly interesting. Snicket writes it in such a way as to allow the reader the choice of purring the words, whispering them, putting a bit of creak into the vocal chords, or hissing them. The parent is granted the choice of making the dark threatening in its initial lures or comforting. Long story short, adults would do well to attempt a couple solo readings on their own before attempting with a kiddo. At least figure out what take you're going for. It demands no less.

The most Snicketish verbal choice, unfortunately, turns out to be the book's Achilles heel. You're reading along, merry as you please, when you come to a page that creates a kind of verbal record scratch to the whole proceeding. Laszlo has approached the dark at last. He is nearing something that may turn out to be very scary. And then, just as he grows near, the next page FILLS . . . . with text. Text that is very nice and very well written and perhaps places childhood fears in context better than anything I've seen before. All that. By the same token it stops the reading cold. I imagine there must have been a couple editorial consultations about this page. Someone somewhere along the process of publication would have questioned its necessity. Perhaps there was a sterling defense of it that swayed all parties involved and in it remained. Or maybe everyone at Little, Brown loved it the first time they read it. Not quite sure. What I do know is that if you are reading this book to a large group, you will skip this page. And if you are reading one-on-one to your own sprog? Depends on the sprog, of course. Thoughtful sprogs will be able to take it. They may be few and far between, however. The last thing you want when you are watching a horror film and the hero is reaching for the doorknob of the basement is to have the moment interrupted by a five-minute talk on the roots of fear. It might contain a brilliant thesis. You just don't want to hear it at this particular moment in time.

Canadians have a special relationship to the dark that Americans can't quite appreciate. I was first alerted to this fact when I read Caroline Woodward's Singing Away the Dark. That book was about a little girl's mile long trek through the dark to the stop for her school bus. The book was illustrated by Julie Morstad, whose work reminds me, not a little, of Klassen's. They share a similar deadpan serenity. If Morstad was an American citizen you can bet she'd get as much attention as Mr. Klassen has acquired in the last few years. In this particular outing, Mr. Klassen works almost in the negative. Much of this book has to be black. Pure black. The kind that has a palpable weight to it. Laszlo and his house fill in the spaces where the dark has yet to penetrate. It was with great pleasure that I watched what the man did with light as well. The colors of a home when lit by a flashlight are different from the colors seen in the slow setting of the evening sun. A toy car that Laszlo abandons in his efforts to escape the dark appears as a dark umber at first, then later pure black in the flashlight's glow. We only see the early morning light once, and in that case Klassen makes it a lovely cool blue. These are subtle details, but they're enough to convince the reader that they're viewing accurate portrayals of each time of day.

The dark is not visually anthropomorphized. It is verbally, of course, with references to it hiding, sitting, or even gazing. One has to sit and shudder for a while when you imagine what this book might have been like with an author that turned the dark into a black blob with facial expressions. It's not exaggerating to say that such a move would defeat the very purpose of the book itself. The whole reason the book works on a visual level is because Klassen adheres strictly and entirely to the real world. An enterprising soul could take this book, replicate it scene by scene in a live action YouTube video, and not have to dip into the film budget for a single solitary special effect. This is enormously important to children who may actually be afraid of the dark. This book gives a face to a fear that is both nameable and not nameable without giving a literal face to a specific fear. It's accessible because it is realistic.

When dealing with picture books that seek to exorcise fears, one has to be very careful that you don't instill a fear where there wasn't one before. So a child that might never have considered the fact that nighttime can be a scary time might enter into a whole new kind of knowledge with the simple application of this book. That said, those sorts of things are very much on a case-by-case basis. Certainly The Dark will be a boon to some and simply a well-wrought story for others. Pairing Klassen with Snicket feels good when you say it aloud. No surprise then that the result of such a pairing isn't just good. It's great. A powerhouse of a comfort book.

For ages 4-8.

I was excited to see this book mentioned and quickly reserved it from the library. And while I really enjoyed the illustrations, at the end of the book, I was left scratching my head. Yes, I could appreciate the dark being a character but there was no illuminating (no pun intended) message to me from this book.

Lemony Snicket just tweeted that he will donate a million dollars to planned parenthood. Of course he knows about the body parts and he should know about the allegations that they cover up certain things... He could donate to disabled children for better wheelchairs, for child care relief to their parents, to research on better teaching methods...but Planned Parenthood who lied about the mammogram business and sells baby parts???