A Bad Case of the Stripes by David Shannon

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Title: A Bad Case of the Stripes
Genre: Fantasy
Author/Illustrator: David Shannon
Age group: 2nd-5th

Summary 
This story follows a young girl named Camilla.  She is very nervous to start school and of course the morning of school she wakes up covered from head to toe in rainbow stripes. So the family physician comes in and checks out Camilla and says she's well enough to attend school.  And at school everyone laughs and makes fun of her stripes.  Then things get worse than she could imagine when based on whatever is happening in the room Camilla's stripes change!  Students begin shouting out random things in order to get her appearance to change.  Doctors and scientists alike are unable to figure out why Camilla has stripes and most certainly are unaware of why they are changing.  They suggest a virus and viruses begin to appear on Camilla's body.  Same thing with bacteria and fungus.  Then an environmental therapist tells Camilla to become one with her room and poor Camilla starts morphing into her room!  Finally a wise old women is able to convince Camilla to eat Lima beans.  She had previously decided to not eat them anymore even though she likes them just because her friends at school do not like them.  The lady begins feeding them to Camilla and she is cured of her stripes.  In the end Camilla proudly eats her Lima beans and is striped never again.
Evaluation
I think this story was so fun to read!  The amount of color and detail that David Shannon put into this work makes the reader really believe in Camilla's stripes.  I think the value that this story has is the moral to always be yourself and being different is ok.  I would not personally use this in my secondary level courses but I still see the value it provides to young students.


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