Title: Grandpa, I’m Afraid
Author: Mart Grams
Illustrations by: Allisandra German
Publisher: Xlibris
ISBN: 978-1-9845-2608-3
Pages: 26
Genre: Illustrated Children’s Book
Reviewed by: Beth Adams

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Author Mart Grams begins his illustrated children’s book titled Grandpa, I’m Afraid with some wise words to the adults about fear in children and being afraid. Basically all kids go through it to varying degrees. In quite a professional way, he writes about the commonality of fear children have in many instances; such as insects including spiders and bees, the dark, monsters and clowns. Usually these fears manifest themselves between the ages of 2 to 7. Later in life, the childhood fears shift to anxieties about accidents, nuclear war, failure and rejection, which of course are all counterbalanced by logic, wisdom and knowledge.

The stories are written in a conversational dialogue between Papa and either Sophia or Alli, his granddaughters. As in one episode, the granddaughter says there is a bee in her room which will sting her. Papa replies by saying it is probably lost and looking for flowers; let’s open the window so it can get back to what it’s doing. When told of a monster under her bed, he replies with “What does it look like?” diffusing the argument due to the fact she cannot see it. The fear of something in the closet is handled in loving disbelief, then the topic of conversation is shifted as to not even acknowledge the ridiculousness of the fear without causing any insult to the child. The most elaborate is the fear of clowns, which frankly the author Stephen King may be somewhat to blame nowadays. In this case, Papa suggests they each dress up like clowns the day prior to going to the circus, once again taking the fear out of the clown.

Interleaved throughout each of the fear conversations are hand drawn “crayon” types of illustrations by Alli. Drawn at what must have been a young age, her talent and overall sense of inclusion of details relevant to the situation is very impressive. Especially at the end of the book is a picture of a winged monster with fanglike teeth and a scary look in its eyes, yet done with such artistic flair the picture itself is worthy of being mentioned.

So Grandpa, I’m Afraid achieves two objectives. One being a good, loving and comforting dialog between a grandfather and his granddaughters, and secondly a healthy mental development to circumvent the inherent fears children will normally go through. It provides a preemptive therapy diminishing fear while being very entertaining. It is a comforting way to put children to bed without having them worry about why lies under the bed, in the closet, or what happens when the lights go off.