Who has not had the “I’m Hungry!” issue? You eat a piece of pizza, but you are still hungry, and you want something else to eat. So, you eat the plate, the table, the house, the school, a mountain and finally you see the child reading the book you are in, and you try and eat them. I mean, that happens to all of us, right? Well, it might not happen to all of us, but it happens to the monster in the board book (due mid-September 2023) by Elise Gravel.
I am giving you the spoiler: children do not taste good. And if I was a child I might be insulted. After all the monster of the book eats the trash can, trash and all, and is fine with that but a child makes them go phooey?
If you have not guessed this is not a book for everyone. The humor is off-center and the basic image of a piece of pizza (house, school, mountain, trash can, etc.) and the red, round, big mouth, two teeth monster is all you get for illustrations. I guess, that is not a bad thing, just not a me thing.
The thing that works best for the aimed at age (under five, or the starting out just reading themselves) is the repetition of the concept of being hungry, what can they eat, eating, then still being hungry. The ending is where things are switched up with the idea of: Children who read books are not a good thing to eat.
