Achilles is tired of eating bananas. What he would really like to eat is a child! A nice child is exactly what he wants. His mother tries to tempt him with bananas, but he refuses. His father tries to get him to eat some sausage, but he doesn't want any of that. Not even chocolate cake can get him to stop wanting to eat a child. Then, by the shore of the river, he sees a child! But it doesn't go quite the way he was hoping it would...My favourite part of this book was (spoiler warning), the end. Instead of the crocodile and the child becoming friends, she humiliates him by calling him small and cute, and he goes away determined to eat lots of bananas so that he can get bigger and one day eat a child after all. It was definitely not the ending I was expecting! The illustrations are also very nicely done, with special attention paid to the changing colours of the sky. It's a bit of an odd book, but I enjoyed it, and it might be a good one for sharing with picky eaters.
Find it at IndieBound.
Read it with:
Crocodiles Are the Best Animals of All by Sean Taylor
Children Make Terrible Pets by Peter Brown
Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban
Brontorina by James Howe
When Stella Was Very, Very Small by Marie-Louise Gay
I *love* this book...though it does make me a bit sad for the crocodile, my god he's just so cute!
ReplyDeleteAnd Achilles is such a great name for a children's book character...I always like when they don't go for the obvious, short, easy to pronounce names.