Silly Billy - Written by Anthony Browne

This book is suitable for three to five years old, the reason for this age are since it is did not use many words and simple as well. Also the illustrations are colorful; we can see the cover of this book is active, and I believed the arrangement of the color of the book will attract children a lot. In addition, the book of “Silly Billy” is rhymed that motivate the reader to get attention on this book.


I personally think this book is full of entertainment for kids. This story’s main character are over worry about the things that is unnecessary, when his grandma knew this situation, she make worry dolls for him, told him that every single worry can tell those worry dolls. However, the little boy thought that the worry dolls have their own feeling too. Therefore, he makes other dolls for those worry dolls. This is quite interesting.


The first point here is that, the kids has lots of feeling and worries that parents cannot understood. They may have great imagination for this world which includes pure and true feeling of this society. Second, the book describe children’s mind are kind, and it is adorable. Billy even makes worry dolls for those worry dolls, we may think that does not make any sense. However, it is really show that kids are innocent and pure to this world and the people around them.


From the perspective of feminist criticism, I think grandma play an important role for Billy. At first, Billy’s parents try to comfort him by telling the truth, but it does not work at all. While grandma can comfort him in the different way, she does not think it is ridiculous but use the child way to solve his problem. I think the author use the grandma as a symbol of women’s tender. In the traditional impression, women are soft, kind and tender especially for children.
And I think it also related to historical criticism. Actually, worry dolls are a custom from the ancient western culture. Compared to Billy’s parents, the grandma uses the widely wisdom to comfort Billy and it is more effective, since it does not work. I think this book did not teach us many educational stuffs but lovely.