The Book That Eats People

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Overview

WARNING! THIS IS NOT A BEDTIME STORY

Legend has it there exists a book that eats people.

This is that book!

Many readers have been unable to escape its perilous pages.
But this isn't that book.

Yes it is!

This is simply a story about that book.
Really. I mean, how could a book eat people?
So if you're just dying to know the history of this literary monster, all you have to do is turn the page...

Don't do it!

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

From the grim warning on the first page (“CAUTION! This is a book that eats people”) to the advice at the end (“Never read this book with syrupy fingers. Never read it with cookies in your pocket. Never turn your back on it”), Perry's debut soldiers on with a Lemony Snicket–like straight face. The histories of the book's previous victims are given in gory detail (“Sammy pulled as hard as he could, but the book ate him. Then it coughed up his bones and they clattered across the floor like wooden blocks”). Fearing draws the book-within-a-book with blood-red covers, heavy-lidded eyes and a mouthful of fangs, packing his collage spreads with torn and crumpled papers (which take on an especially gruesome vibe in this context). Perry also covers the book's perverse appetites (“if you hear a sound like an octopus in a tub of yogurt, that's the book's empty stomach”), tactics (it “traded covers” with a book called All About Dolphins, to the delight of one young Victoria Glassford) and eventual (if ineffectual) incarceration. It's all irresistible. Read it. Carefully. All ages. (Oct.)

Children's Literature

"Beware" is stamped on the jacket, as eyes peer out at us, for this is the book that eats people. We are warned to shut it and put something heavy on top if we hear it growl. For it is always hungry. We are horrified by stories of the unfortunates the book has already eliminated if they had something tasty on their fingers or were simply there when the book was hungry. We are told that this is a bad book that we should burn or grind up. For despite reports to the contrary it keeps on eating, even when chained in jail. When sent to the zoo to be reformed, nothing stops its taste for people. But we choose to read on, fully warned about what we hold in our hands, enjoying macabre fun. The fantasy is visualized in Photoshop with "collage elements." Characters are cartoon-y; page designs effectively varied. The resulting visual sequence wants to move rapidly but displays images that insistently distract us. A single reading is not enough. Is there some deep symbolism in the power of this book? Reviewer: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz

More Reviews (2) Fewer Reviews

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 3—In this tale of tongue-in-cheek terror, a breathless narrator warns readers about a book gone rogue. Beginning with a peanut-butter-fingered child who pages through it and is gobbled up, the book leaves a trail of bones, chewed pages, and missing children and grown-ups as it takes advantage of its prey's cluelessness. Finally caught by police after someone sees it in action, the jailed book is transferred to the zoo. But readers are holding the very book and are warned at the conclusion, "…this book is always hungry. And it eats people." This hilariously dark story is illustrated with collage elements using Photoshop in a jazzy, jangly style that is part noir and part graphic novel. Big-eyed characters are stalked by a wonderfully sinister and pointy-toothed tome. Readers who love monsters and a good scare while still delighting in silly proceedings will definitely want to brave this tale.—Marge Loch-Wouters, La Crosse Public Library, WI

Kirkus Reviews

In the fine old tradition of Jon Stone's The Monster at the End of This Book, illustrated by Mike Smollin (1971), and like cautionary exercises, Perry provides thrillingly urgent warnings to steer clear of this volume-or at least not to read it while smelling of peanut butter or other foods. Clever enough to hide behind enticing dust jackets (All About Dolphins, anyone?) and having cannibalistic tendencies along with a particular taste for unwary children, the volume can lurk in libraries, boxes of literary rejects put out with household trash and any number of other seemingly innocuous locales-so watch out! Fearing's Photoshopped collages and cartoon illustrations have a suitably menacing aspect, featuring plenty of crumpled or shredded paper, pop-eyed victims and, on many spreads, a toothy maw and glaring eyes. A Roy Lichtenstein-esque spread that finds the book captured, jailed and chained after eating a fellow prisoner, "who deserved it," is particularly inspired. Perfect for sharing with susceptible younger sibs or as a gift item for frenemies. (Picture book. 6-8)

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781582462684
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Publication date: 8/11/2009
Pages: 38
Sales rank: 179,722
Age range: 4 - 8 Years
Product dimensions: 8.20 (w) x 11.20 (h) x 0.40 (d)

Meet the Author

JOHN PERRY says The Book that Eats People wrote itself late one night while he was asleep. Since then, he has made it his mission to warn readers about it. John lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his family and a library full of dangerous books.

MARK FEARING has studied here and there, and worked there and here. He likes ice cream and he loves to draw. He lives outside of Portland, Oregon, with his family and shelves full of mostly well-behaved books.

Read an Excerpt

CAUTION

This is a book that eats people.

If you hear growling while you're reading it, stop reading, close the cover, and put something heavy on top of it.

DO NOT let your little brother or sister read this book—especially when it's hungry.

You should always assume this book is hungry.

Remember:

This is NOT a storybook.
It is NOT a book of rhymes.

It isn't a how-to book or a dictionary.

It's a book that eats people.

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capriccio

Posted May 27, 2010

Be sure to put it away carefully...

What a fun book! I found this one on the Choice LIteracy Best of 2009 reading list. The cover alone would make a kid want to pick it up and you find yourself putting it away carefully, just in case... :) The illustrations are my favorite part, they add so much feeling to the story and to the Book That Eats People. Enjoy!
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The Book That Eats People

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Customers Who Bought This Also Bought

More About This Book

Overview

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Children's Literature

School Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

Meet the Author

Read an Excerpt

Customer Reviews

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Be sure to put it away carefully...