What's Under The Bed?

My son's been on a "leave the door open" kick for the past few weeks, so I thought I'd see if there were any books that might broach the subject.            

THREE PROS

*Regardless of what you think of the images, there's no doubt they sprung from the mind and hand of a genius

*Does an excellent job of portraying the in-the-bed moments as if Fred is on a different planet

*Brings you through the looking glass by showing the monster being scared of a little boy under his bed

THREE CONS 

*Plain and simple, the book should not be in the utterly macabre black and white (especially by the end) and should have closed with a happy thought to send young readers off to bed

*The freaky clown doll is the obvious root of all this boy's fears

*Why haven't poor Fred's parents told him he should sleep with his glasses off 

ONE DAD'S OPINION

At the time Joe Fenton released this in 2008, he had no children (I assume, since he dedicated it to nieces and nephews).  It goes to show that you can have a Disney pedigree and all the talent in the world, but if you don't tuck someone in every night, there's a good chance you'll miss the boat on what works for kids.  His story's freaky pix and not-so-warm+fuzzy resolution should be reason enough for his siblings to only invite him over for daytime visits. In short, the $3 nightlight I just bought is much more effective than this $16 book will ever be, even if you factor in the inflation-adjusted electricity costs over the next 16 years...      

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