A guide for parents and caregivers

The story is about a little girl whose toy-friend dinosaur is thirsty one night. She braves the darkness and walks to the kitchen to get him some water. As she opens the refrigerator, her own shadow scares the dinosaur and then her. This is when she first encounters her fear. Fear that takes over her completely, she runs, she hides, she fights, but fear is undeterred. It is only when she trips and her fear picks her up that she realises that maybe she doesn’t know her fear, and it might not hurt knowing what her fear wants from her. 

There are many nuances hidden in the drawings. When I read the book, I don’t tell the story; rather I ask questions about what it is that a child is seeing on a page. Sometimes its a wild answer. Sometimes they see more than what I had put on the page. I gently guide them to see that Tara is scared, and her fear is scared too. And that fear is not our enemy but rather a friend that comes and goes. When it comes back, it is trying to tell us something about ourselves and we must listen carefully. That it is also okay to be scared. We are all scared sometimes.