JEREMY WORRIED ABOUT THE WIND

A worrywart faces his many fears.

Jeremy, a freckled White boy with straight, reddish-brown hair who wears an oversized coat, worries about everything. His fears are listed for a few pages, their etiology never quite explained or made accessible, when finally the story gets to his titular anemophobia. It then shifts, a bit awkwardly, to focus on his new friendship with Maggie, a cheerful, fearless Black girl with puffy hair. Jeremy tries to convert Maggie to his fearful ways, but when she rushes outside to play on a windy day (“It…makes my hair so long!” she exclaims), Jeremy decides that “he had to save her.” Enormous coat acting like a sail, he’s carried away by a gust of wind, landing on a dog sled, a pirate ship, and a squirrel-driven helicopter in turn, before being delivered back home, free from all of his anxieties. The zany illustrations of angry squirrels and cheerful dinosaurs are worth poring over, but the writing and plot are wooden and a bit preachy, trying to be snarky but coming off as overearnest. As a friendship story this is more illustrative as a how-not-to guide, with Jeremy a frustrating nitpicker and Maggie an underdeveloped prop for his growth, but many kids will be blown away by the over-the-top adventures. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Fun but missable.