Know someone who’s starting school? Getting a new job? Going to the in-laws’ for the first time? For anyone on the brink of something scary, this gift edition of a hilarious classic is the perfect antidote.

You’re skating downhill, but you don’t know how to stop. You’re having your hair cut, and you suddenly realize . . . they’re cutting it too short. There’s no question about it: some things are scary. And never have common bugaboos been exposed with more comic urgency than in this masterful mix of things horrible and humiliating, monstrous or merely unsettling. Now in a compact edition with a new cover - and a bookplate that lets gift-givers specify the occasion - Florence Parry Heide’s witty text and Jules Feiffer’s over-the-top illustrations will get even the most anxious recipients laughing, while reassuring them (no matter how old they are) that they’re not alone in their fears.