School of Fear

This series of three books is a complete deviation from what I normally write about.  Not young adult or paranormal, just a cute story.  They are at about a 6^th Grade reading level (according to my daughter’s school assessment) and so, therefore, make for a fun, quick read. 

School of Fear (by Gitty Daneshvari) is about four very different kids with one thing in common.  They each have a crippling fear of something.  Their fears are so great that they are forced to go to drastic measures to get rid of them.  Hence The School of Fear.

My favorite part of these books is that each chapter begins: Everyone’s Afraid of Something:  _____ is the fear of ____.  So you get to learn all sorts of interesting things of which people might be afraid.

Some of my favorites are:  

Cacophobia is the fear of ugliness. (I think to some degree most of us have a little of this)

Logizomechanophobia is the fear of computers (I don’t think you have this one, since you are reading a blog on a computer)

Somniphobia is the fear of sleep.  (I believe I have the antithesis of this as I love to sleep)

And then there is my favorite word in the dictionary (this has been my favorite word for years simply because of the irony of it):

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is fear of long words.  (for a pronunciation go to http://www.forvo.com/word/hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia/)

How about you?  Any favorite words?

BTW- I will freely admit that I have Ophidiophobia: the abnormal fear of snakes.  (I can’t even look at them on TV without freaking… something about the way they move creeps me out) and just so you know according to Wikipedia:  “About a third of adult humans are ophidiophobic, making this the most common reported phobia.”