A Bad Case of Stripes

by David Shannon, David Shannon (Illustrator)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

A hilarious and brilliant story for young readers. When Camilla comforms for the sake of fitting in, she gets stricken with the stripes. On the surface, an amusing romp; underneath, a meaningful theme. It’s got something for everyone.

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Category: Making Friends"What we have here is a bad case of stripes. One of the worst I've ever seen!"Camilla Cream loves lima beans, but she never eats them. Why? Because the other kids in her school don't like them. And Camilla Cream is very, very worried about what other people think of her. In fact, she's so worried that she's about to break out in...a bad case of stripes!"Shannon's story is a good poke in the eye of conformity...and his empathetic, vivid artwork keeps perfect pace with the tale."-Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780439598385
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	05/01/2004
Edition description:	First Bookshelf Edition
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	13,255
Product dimensions:	7.96(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.10(d)
Lexile:	AD610L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

David Shannon is the internationally acclaimed creator of more than 40 picture books, including No, David!, a Caldecott Honor Book, and his second New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year, and four more David picture books. Shannon's bestsellers include A Bad Case of Stripes, Duck on a Bike, and Too Many Toys. He lives in Southern California with his family and Roy, their West Highland white terrier.

Hometown:

Los Angeles, California

Date of Birth:

October 5, 1960

Place of Birth:

Washington, D. C. (Raised in Spokane, Washington)

Education:

B.A., Art Center College of Design

Editorial Reviews

On this disturbing book's striking dust jacket, a miserable Betty-Boop-like girl, completely covered with bright bands of color, lies in bed with a thermometer dangling from her mouth. The rainbow-hued victim is Camilla Cream, sent home from school after some startling transformations: "when her class said the Pledge of Allegiance, she turned red, white, and blue, and she broke out in stars!" Scientists and healers cannot help her, for after visits from "an old medicine man, a guru, and even a veterinarian... she sprouted roots and berries and crystals and feathers and a long furry tail." The paintings are technically superb but viscerally troublingespecially this image of her sitting in front of the TV with twigs and spots and fur protruding from her. The doe-eyed girl changes her stripes at anyone's command, and only nonconformity can save her. When she finally admits her unspeakable secretshe loves lima beansshe is cured. Shannon (How Georgie Radbourn Saved Baseball) juggles dark humor and an anti-peer-pressure message. As her condition worsens, Camilla becomes monstrous, ultimately merging with the walls of her room. The hallucinatory images are eye-popping but oppressive, and the finalewith Camilla restored to her bean-eating selfbrings a sigh of relief. However, the grotesque images of an ill Camilla may continue to haunt children long after the cover is closed. Ages 5-9. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

K-Gr 2A highly original moral tale acquires mythic proportions when Camilla Cream worries too much about what others think of her and tries desperately to please everyone. First stripes, then stars and stripes, and finally anything anyone suggests (including tree limbs, feathers, and a tail) appear vividly all over her body. The solution: lima beans, loved by Camilla, but disdained for fear they'll promote unpopularity with her classmates. Shannon's exaggerated, surreal, full-color illustrations take advantage of shadow, light, and shifting perspective to show the girl's plight. Bordered pages barely contain the energy of the artwork; close-ups emphasize the remarkable characters that inhabit the tale. Sly humor lurks in the pictures, too. For example, in one double-page spread the Creams are besieged by the media including a crew from station WCKO. Despite probing by doctors and experts, it takes "an old woman who was just as plump and sweet as a strawberry" to help Camilla discover her true colors. Set in middle-class America, this very funny tale speaks to the challenge many kids face in choosing to act independently.Carolyn Noah, Central Mass. Regional Library System, Worcester, MA

School Library Journal

...[A] delicious visual metaphor for the disease of caring too much about what others think of you. -- The New York Times

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

IRA Children's ChoicePennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award* "Shannon's story is a good poke in the eye of conformity—imaginative, vibrant, and at times good and spooky—and his emphatic, vivid artwork keeps perfect pace with the tale." — Kirkus Reviews, (starred review)"Shannon's over-the-top art is sensational, an ingenious combination of the concrete and the fantastic..." — Booklist

From the Publisher