The best books for toddlers age 2-3 are ones that deal with issues these little ones have. I know from experience that many little children have this fear of the dark, and it is something that stays with many children right up to adulthood. I decided that for my 14th children's picture book, I was going to combine a fear many little kids have with one of the scariest creatures in the sea that evokes fear in adults as well as their kids. My thoughts were if I could make the shark cute enough, then I could easily show children how even the scariest monster in the deep can get over something like being scared of the dark. As far as rhyming children's books, this one will be a favorite of children of all ages.
Similar to my classic kids book, The Duck Who Has Bad Luck, Seth the shark was happy living his life the way it was. He found a way to simply make the best of things, always home by sun down and never having to really have to deal with the dark. Rather than confront his fear, Seth found that he could keep himself busy doing other things and never have to really worry about the dark. With this preschool rhyming book, my goal was to show kids that by not talking or dealing with something that frightens you, it just makes the issue bigger and scarier than it really is. The thing that kept running through my mind was the old adage about nothing to fear but fear itself. I mean think about it for a second, how much sense does it make to give that fear all the attention anyway? If you deal with it once, the issue can go away. If you ignore it, you wind up fighting that battle over and over again.
So in my latest rhyming children's book, Seth the shark found himself hanging with his friends after school one day and getting lost. Now what happens is the group can not get home before the sun sets, and this puts Seth in the position of having to deal with his fear of the dark once and for all. Luckily for Seth, he has his friends close by to help. My hope is that if a child is afraid of the dark and reading this book with their parents, that they may reach out or possibly talk about it and be able to see that it really is nothing but their imagination. Seth is a scary shark and he has fears, but he found that by getting the help of those that loved him, he could get over just about anything. Sharks don't have to be scary, as you can plainly see in this cute baby animals rhyming picture book, The Shark Afraid of the Dark!