Otherwise Known as the Worst Book in the Fudge Series ( )

Fears

Who is Sheila Tubman? Even Sheila isn’t sure. Sometimesshe feels like confident Sheila the Great, and other timesshe’s secret Sheila, who’s afraid of spiders, swimming,and, most of all, dogs. When her family decides to leavethe city for a summer in the country, Sheila will haveto suffer everything from long-eared dogs to swimminglessons to creepy spiders. That’s enough to drive a city girlnuts! If she survives at all, Sheila may be forced to admitthat she’s no supergirl.

The only reason I finished this book was because it is short and I am stubborn.

Listen, I understand kids come in all shapes and sizes, and some are a little messier and more complicated than others, that doesn’t necessarily make them bad protagonists. But when they’re so utterly unlikeable, and there’s no redemption at the end of the book? No thanks.

Sure, Shiela gets the message that being scared is ok, and she admits her fear (in one area) and finds out it’s not so scary after all, and then another thing she’s scared of turns out to also be not quite so scary, but these things don’t stop her from being an insufferable braggart who can’t seem to admit she’s not the best at everything.

I don’t know why she’s learning more from her peers than her parents about life and being scared, it certainly doesn’t make her folks seem all that involved or interested. And in general, no one seems to push back against her pompous behavior, except maybe her big sister. On the one hand Mouse could be seen as a pretty good friend for looking past her ridiculous assertions of her yo-yo prowess and newspaper writing abilities and choosing to be her friend anyway. On the other hand, literally no one calls her out for being a liar and a snot and how is this girl going to know it’s not ok to behave that way? ( )

Not bad for a 40 year old book. Not all books for children can stand the test of time. This one has. ( )