A Bad Case of Stripes

What would you do if you were getting dressed on one ordinary day, and when you looked in
the mirror, your skin was covered in stripes?  This is exactly what happens to the
unsuspecting Camilla Cream.

A Bad Case of Stripes  by David Shannon is a very creatively written book that tells the
story of young Camilla Cream.  In the beginning, Camilla is busy trying on outfit after outfit
in her room in preparation for the first day of school.  As she models a dress, she notices that
her skin is now striped in the colors of the rainbow.  At her scream, her mother, Mrs. Cream,
comes running.  Mrs. Cream is clueless as to what to do, so she calls Dr. Bumble.  The doctor
announces Camilla doesn’t have any flu or cold symptoms, so he sends her off to school the
next day, where all the kids call Camilla names, resulting in her changing colors.  This then
sets off doctors of every kind, streaming in to try to cure the now famous Camilla Cream. 
Camilla is poked and prodded, grows fungus, viruses, and all sorts of oddities until she is
quite literally transformed into her room.  It turns out that Camilla just wasn’t being herself,
and all she had to do was eat the lima beans she secretly loved to turn back to her normal
self.
First off, I think that Camilla is much too worried about what other people think of her.  If
she likes who she is, nothing else should matter.  Even though lima beans are her very
favorite food in the world, she avoids eating them because all her friends think they are
positively revolting!  Additionally, she tried on forty-two different outfits to decide which she
looked best in for the first day of school.  Another example is when the plot almost took a
nasty plunge when Camilla began to refuse the elderly lady’s offer to help by making her eat
lima beans, but Camilla almost turned them down because she was too worried about other
people’s opinion of her.  You can now see why not being yourself can be almost dangerous!

What if Camilla hadn’t been so hooked on making others approve of her?  If she hadn’t
cared, she wouldn’t have had that bad case of stripes.  Since the bad case of stripes is the
whole point of the story, there couldn’t really be a story anymore.  If Camilla had only never
cared about fitting in, she wouldn’t have woken up with rainbow colored stripes running over
her body because she would have eaten her fill of lima beans.  Just imagine all of that
humiliation simply because of trying to hide a fondness for lima beans!

In this book, Camilla is very concerned about blending in with the crowd.  Out there in the
world, there are many people like that.  Unfortunately for them, they don’t get striped head
to toe in bright colors to remind them to be their own people.  They change according to
popular clothing trends, music, and whatever is considered “cool” to do.  This is like Camilla
taking all morning to decide what to wear and choosing not to eat her beloved lima beans
because they are considered by many to be absolutely disgusting.  Maybe this quote could
help Camilla, and others like her, to be themselves:  “What is popular is not always right;
what is right is not always popular.”

In conclusion, this book is a great reminder to be your own person.  There is no one like you
in the whole world.  The author states this creatively and folds it into the storyline.  I think
David Shannon wanted to teach us to be our own selves, no matter what other people might
think.  If you like who you are, nothing else should matter.  I am head over heels in love with
this book, and for most of the reasons I stated above.  I believe being yourself is very
important and that we all should have the right to be who we want to be.