Some Things Are Scary

The text was first published in the late 1960s, when the world was presumably a less scary place, and "getting hugged by someone you don't like" had a very different connotation than it does now. But it has been newly illustrated by Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and he brings the book to vibrant life, using the rather flat text as a foil for his wildly energetic drawings.

Feiffer's style consists of extremely fluid scribbles that combine in ways both warm and hilarious. He is a master of both facial expression and body language (even the shadows tell a story, as in the illustration for "thinking you're not going to be picked for either side"). His pictures, mostly with watercolor washes or white space instead of extraneous and distracting background detail, focus on the people and their clearly felt emotions.