The Opposite

You may know Elena Odriozola's illustrations from her brilliant Vegetable Glue (sorry you can't actually see inside here) or Supersonic Tonic. Seeing the ancient, prancing grandmother in Vegetable Glue is enough to make anyone swear off Mars Bars forever.
The Opposite, once again, has a brilliant gallery of long nosed sober looking stock. There are parents, teachers and children but most interestingly there is a creature called The Opposite. The Opposite, in Hebrew, is called the Yetzer Harah, the thing that forces you to be bad. You have the choice to resist but one rarely does.
My eight year old enjoyed the battle with the naughty Opposite. The boy eventually figures out how to combat it and eventually drive it away. This is not a picture book for little children. They will simply leave it confused. A six to eight year old might be able to relate to the outer force of evil approach, to their temper. They might see that their temper is something that they can truly control. We all hope to teach that to our children and ourselves. Perhaps this book has more in it than I had originally gave it credit for.