An Unexpected Thing

‘Being afraid sometimes is quite normal’, but then there is Fred.  Fred is afraid of almost everything, particularly of the unexpected.  The result of all this fear is that when a large black ball appears in the sky, he is terrified and runs to hide.  This is well portrayed in the huge amount of black trees and bushes that appear over and around the quaking Fred while he is hiding.  His friend Coco sees something quite opposite from Fred.  When she finds him, she brings him out of his hiding place and they discuss the possibilities.  What could it be?  Fred thinks it might be a comet about to hit the earth or a moon out of orbit, but Coco sees a lovely balloon with a message attached or ‘a bubble bobbling in the wind’.  They continue to compare points of view, but in the end can’t decide what they are seeing so they begin to investigate, something Fred has never done before, and he finds on climbing the nearest tree right to the top, that Coco has showed him how to face up to fears.  They still discuss the special thing it could be without coming to any conclusion, but when they spy a ‘sparkling string’ hanging from the black spot, they climb up it and the rest is pure magic while they dance around together in the growing darkness of the sky.  ‘The world is fizzing with things – scary things, terrific things… and even though these things can make us feel afraid and unsure, together we can find them out.’ The illustrations are full of darkness at the beginning of the book and then burst into full colour and light when Coco’s positivity enters the scene.  At the end, the blackness of the ball is the only thing black left, meaning that when we enter into fear, we can discover that a fear can turn out to be enchanting.  A lovely story.