Meta-Menace? Get Me Out of This Book: Rules and Tools for Being Brave by Kalli Dakos and Deborah Cholette

I'm Max. I'm a bookmark who used to be SCARED TO DEATH of books. The pictures freaked me out!

When I was put on a page with a king cobra, I couldn't LOOK, and I SHOOK, and I SCREAMED--

Max the Bookmark has a phobia!

He knows it's silly. It's sensible to be scared of real cobras and sharks. But being scared of illustrations? That's embarrassing, all right, especially IF your job is being a bookmark. Your job is to mark any page the reader picks! If he wants to stay employed, Max needs remediation, and he decides to advance his education with a some coursework--the Special Bookmark Badge!

Rule One is to Breathe Deeply.

At least breathing comes naturally. But the Rule Two is harder. Make a Plan. In other words, think about what you can do. There's always something. And that's when Rule Three comes in: Try to imagine good outcomes. Think Good Thoughts.

But talk is cheap! The next thing is important and goes without saying: practice, Practice, PRACTICE.

Max can't wait to try out his new skills with The Scariest Book EVER!

Max masters the task of facing up to snakes, sharks, cockroach armies, skeletons, and hairy seven-headed monsters. After all, what's the worst thing that can happen?

"Tomorrow someone will turn the page in the book."

Fears of ink on a page are not really the issue, as Max loses his logophobia, in Kalli Dakos and Deborah Cholette's tongue-in-cheek how-to manual, Get Me Out of This Book: Rules and Tools for Being Brave (Holiday House, 2019). Sarah Infante provides humorous illustrations of this metafictional protagonist as a stand-in for the fearful to keep the narration light and funny.

Fears are normal, but kids troubled with persistent anxieties may find that this well-executed picture-book bit of bibliotherapy, actually borrowed from the Navy Seals training book, may transfer to handling fears and phobias in the real world. Says Kirkus Reviews, "An ambitious blending of emotional and psychological tools with fantasy that will serve the right reader well."