The Theme of True Self in A Bad Case of Stripes

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“Some of the kids at school thought she was weird, but she didn’t care a bit.” (28) This is how David Shannon describes his character Camilla
Cream at the end of the book A Bad Case of Stripes, but that wasn’t always the case for Camilla Cream. In fact, at the beginning of this book,
Camilla fears being different and even denies eating her favorite food, lima beans, in order to fit in. It takes a bad case of stripes, cured only by being true to herself and her love of lima beans, to teach her not to care that others might find her weird. This story of Camilla Cream creatively demonstrates that a person should be who he or she wants to be despite what others might think.
Camilla’s stripes demonstrate this theme by representing her concern for what others think about her. As Camilla tries on outfit after outfit to try to be perfect for the first day of school, the author reveals that Camilla never eats lima beans, even though she loves them, just because she wants to fit in with her friends who hate them. “Camilla was always worried about what people thought about her,” ...

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