rosieroon's Full Review: Mercer Mayer - There's a Nightmare in My Closet
I debated over whether or not I should use this story as the subject of the Bedtime Story Write Off. A book about monsters in the closet a bedtime story? One might think that this would induce nightmares, not prevent them. But it’s been my experience that this story can indeed prevent nightmares. When I asked my children what book they would recommend to me for this write off, they all agreed this was one of their favorites.
There’s A Nightmare In My Closet is a story about a boy who is in bed, about to go to sleep. The story is from his point of view:
There used to be a nightmare in my closet.
Before going to sleep,
I always closed the door.
I was even afraid to turn around and look.
Who can’t relate to that? As a child I was very afraid of the darkness in my closet. No matter how many times I peeked inside to “check”, I was always afraid. Luckily I had parents who were sympathetic, and would turn the light on inside the closet to make me feel better.
My children were no different. They were afraid of the darkness surrounding them as they were put to bed. When I spotted There’s A Nightmare In My Closet at the library I immediately knew it would help my child. Mercer Mayer is an excellent storyteller and has a masterful way of dealing with childhood issues on a level that children can understand.
I remember well reading this to my son, who was around the age of seven. He was impressed that other kids were feeling frightened in the same was he was. The boy in the book appears to be around five.
When I was safe in bed, I’d peek...
sometimes.
The boy decides to rid himself and his closet of the nightmare.
As soon as the room was dark, I heard
him creeping toward me.
The illustrations (also by Mercer Mayer) in There’s A Nightmare In My Closet are very important to this story. The drawings are simple, colored in pale green and red, and gray. We see the boy’s room, with a few toys strewn about, an open window and a twin bed with a light beside it. When the nightmare appears from the closet, we see a big creature heading straight toward the boy. But what is so cool is that the monster is absolutely adorable – big, soulful eyes, a body shape that appears infantile, and a stance that hardly seems threatening. When my children saw him for the first time, their reaction was “Aww, he’s cute!”. If the creature were illustrated as being ugly and scary the whole point of the story would be moot.
The boy turns on his light, and finds the creature sitting at the foot of his bed. The creature is stunned, his hands folded as if praying and his eyes brimming with tears.
”Go away, Nightmare, or I’ll shoot you”, I said.
The boy is brandishing a pop gun, and has on a military style helmet.
Before the creature could respond, the boy shoots him. Then:
My nightmare began to cry.
The poor thing! He’s petrified! The boy gets angry, but the expression on his face isn’t one of anger, or fear. He’s grinning, and appears in control of the situation.
Soon the boy tells the creature to be quiet or his parents will awaken. This doesn’t stop the creature, who is sobbing uncontrollably.
He wouldn’t stop crying so I took him by the hand
and tucked him in bed
and closed the closet door.
Well, it seems this scary creature is afraid of the dark, too, and is relieved to be able to sleep with someone. Just like kids want to come into bed with mom and dad, or share a room with a sibling.
The story ends with the creature and the boy sleeping soundly, as another adorable creature peeks out of the closet door.
The point of this story is to show children that all kids are scared of going to bed at one time or another, and they all have irrational fears.
Again, some parents might think that There’s a Nightmare in My Closet reinforces the idea that there really are monsters in closets. For that reason I wouldn’t recommend this book for any child under the age of 6 or 7. They should be at the age where their intellect tells them this is fiction and there are no such things as monsters, but for some reason they still fear the dark.
This review is being submitted as part of the National Bedtime Story Month writeoff hosted by Phineaskc and Angelabar. Please take a moment to read the other reviews by the following participants:
Childhood fear of the dark and the resulting exercise in imaginative exaggeration are given that special Mercer Mayer treatment in this dryly humorous...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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