Silly Billy by Anthony Browne is a children's picture book that is about 'Billy' a young boy cannot sleep because he worries too much. He worries about hats and shoes and giant birds until his grandma comes up with a solution to fix all his worrying. She gives him worry dolls to do all the worrying for him.
The book uses very little text and is driven by the illustrations. The illustrations start of very dark often being just black and white, this depicts the scared and lonely feeling Billy has as he lies in bed worrying. Towards the end of the book the illustrations become warmer and brighter with colour as Billy's grandma come to the rescue. Yellow and orange are used more towards the end to depict happiness and joy. One of my favourite illustrations is where billy is being dragged out of his bed by a giant bird who has one of his arms in its mouth. This really gives you a sense of what Billy is thinking about and why he is worried.
The story is narrated in a third person style with the author commenting on Billy's thoughts and feelings. As I mentioned before the text is very simple and not very descriptive, using almost no adjectives the text leaves a lot of room for the illustrations.
It is a fun little book that I am sure many children could relate too. It could be used in kindy, preschool or possibly early primary school. Students could make their own worry dolls and talk about what makes them worry the most.
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