I will eat you by Giada Francia, illustrated by Agnese Baruzzi

Anyone who knows me, knows that my perennial complaint about books featuring animals is that they never accurately show food chains. Cute owls hanging out with their natural prey, sentimentalized pigs on farms that produce meat, etc. It drives me nuts! Kids can handle the natural life cycles of the world, it’s adults who have the problem with facts!

So this book, although the novelty aspect was a little problematic, was balm to my soul. The whole thing is basically things eating other things. The book opens vertically and you unfold the pages to show the food chains. The first spread gives a basic overview of food chains and then each page shows two creatures, one proclaiming “I will eat you!”. The pages fold out, showing an unexpected predator joining the mix. A big fish and little fish are joined by an even bigger fish, a mouse is ready to eat a beetle, but is being chased by a snake who in turn is followed by an owl. The sequences continue to the very last page, which has an array of every creature in the book and a label for each.

The back of the flaps add some lovely background to the following picture, and the stylized illustrations are attractive while still being identifiable. The pages are a sturdy paper, not as thick as a board book but stronger than the average page. This isn’t something I’d want to put in the general collection, due to the many folds, but I can see it working well in a special collection or one of my storytime kits.

Verdict: A unique and interesting book, useful for caregivers who want to teach about food chains or kids who are interested in nature.

ISBN: 9780823440313; This edition published 2018 by Holiday House; Borrowed via inter-library loan