Who's Afraid of the Light? - Anna McGregor - ★★★★.¼

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AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR: Anna McGregor
GENRE: Children's Picture Book, Animals.
RATING: 4.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A fun + informative book about deep sea creatures. Loved the fiction plus nonfiction combo, as well as the writing approach. The first ever picture book that startled me into stunned silence on one page! If you read this book, you’ll know what page I am talking about. 😄


Fergus lives way down in the ocean depths, where it is so dark that we can’t see a thing. Worse, he is absolutely afraid of the light as “real monsters hide in the light.” When we meet Fergus, we cant see him at all, and using the little clue he provides, we try to create his picture in our mind. During the course of this interaction, we also meet a few, somewhat weird-looking deep-sea creatures.

This could have been a typical fictional story, using a deep-sea fish to help us learn about the environment we know so little about. This could also have been a typical nonfiction picture book, using illustrations and text to provide information about this unknown part of the ocean. But the book ends up dong both, and quite well too! I loved this unusual approach that blends fiction and non-fiction so well.

I've had various emotions while reading picture books, ranging from joy to sadness to disappointment, but never once have I felt startled! 😄 Seeing Fergus gave me the shock of my life, but also made me laugh out loud.

There is some insightful information about deep-sea creatures towards the end. This was fascinating!

Don’t miss reading from start to end as every page, including the last page, is connected to the story.

The illustrations are digitally created and perfect for the book. The black pages make us feel a part of the dark ocean depths, and Fergus’ multihued text provided a fabulous dash of colour to what would otherwise have been only black and white. The sketches of the creatures are outstanding. The cover glows in the dark, so it might be worth getting a physical copy for your classroom.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and would have loved it to be longer. It’s a clever book in terms of format, with the presentation being its USP. Definitely recommended. The target reading audience will be ages 5-7.

My thanks to Scribble US and Edelweiss+ for the DRC of “Who's Afraid of the Light?” This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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