The area in which the story takes place in seems to be classic small town America where Camilla lives in what looks like a tree filled suburban community.Ĭamilla Cream is the main character and she looks like a typical young girl with fears and insecurities about fitting in. It then ventures back into her bedroom until the end of the story. This could be to add some kind of anonymity so it is easy for a reader to connect with the story on a personal level because the story could be in their own town. The story begins in Camilla's home in her room, and then goes to her schoolhouse. By this there is not a name of a town or state, fiction or not, mentioned in the book. The setting of the story isn't ever specifically stated. There is an older grandmotherly women at the end of the story who comes up with an unlikely and simple cure. All the experts take turns in trying to diagnose and remedy the poor little girl. The principal eventually gets involved by sending Camilla out of her school because she is a distraction to the other students. Eventually the cure for Camilla’s ailment is from an unlikely source and one that Camilla both loves and hates. Of course she can’t go to school now because surely being different colors is far from fitting in with other students. Her parents enlist several doctors to find the cause and cure for this odd illness which just leads to more and more problems from giant pills to a room with a face. She looks in the mirror before school, and suddenly has different colored stripes all over her body.

She absolutely loves to eat lima beans but refuses to eat any because everyone else thinks they are gross and she doesn’t want to be considered weird to her classmates. Therefore she tries on 42 different outfits of all colors and patterns. She doesn't know what to wear on the first day of school, because she is afraid of being judged by the other kids in her school. In this book, Camilla Cream is extremely worried about fitting in. The blend of fantasy and reality make the story really successful and entertaining. Obviously there is no such disease that turns one different colors and patterns or into rooms or into a huge pill. The fantasy aspect comes in when Camilla starts turning colors and having an illness referred to as the “stripes”. These are aspects that give the story a grounding aspect that the reader can relate to. She worries about fitting in with kids her age. For example, Camilla Cream looks like an average elementary aged student with realistic looking parents, home and school. I would place A Bad Case of Stripes in the fiction and fantasy genre, but it also has aspects of reality mixed within the plot and illustrations. This book is a picture book for children and the illustrations are just as important as the text. A Bad Case of Stripes is written and illustrated by David Shannon.

A bad case of stripes lima beans