Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that nothing objectionable is presented in this story of a boy who devours books ... literally! The premise is silly and the tone playful.
Families might compare the literal and metaphorical meanings of the phrase "devouring books." Henry did both. Which worked best for him? Why did he start eating book in the first place? Would actually eating books really make him smarter? Why do you think he suddenly got sick one day? Do you think he will learn more if he reads the books rather than eating them? Who do you think took the bite out of the cover?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Patricia Tauzer
The story of THE INCREDIBLE BOOK EATING BOY itself is as simple as the cartoons that illustrate it: Boy eats books and gets smarter, boy gets sick and loses everything he knows, boy learns to read books and gets smarter again.
Henry, the main character, with his round head, small features and almost stick-like body, is a boy with an obsession, and a dream. He hopes to become the smartest person in the world by devouring every book he can get his hands on. Of course, he runs into problems and eventually learns an important lesson about the proper way to devour information.
With brown-toned collages of words, cartoons, and carefully selected book pages, award-winning author/illustrator Oliver Jeffers has created a very intriguing format for this silly, playful story. He tells the tale with a variety of typewriter prints, highlighted with simple paint and pencil artwork and arranged on pages from old books that he found discarded from libraries, book shops, and personal collections. All in all, he has create a unique format for a unique story. And, a large bite taken out of the back cover is the icing on the cake!
From The Book
He wasn't sure at first,
and tried eating a single word,
just to test.
Next he tried
a whole sentence
and then the
whole page.
Yes, Henry definitely
liked them.
By Wednesday,
he had eaten
a WHOLE book.
Plot Summary:
Henry loves eating books -- really eating them. What begins with the eating of one single word becomes an obsession. The more books he devours, the smarter he gets ... until one day, things change and he has to learn a new way gobble up knowledge.
Related Books:
Other Books by Oliver Jeffers:
How to Catch a Star
Lost and Found
Other Playful Stories about Words, Books and Libraries:
The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter
Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen
Wild About Books by Judy Sierra
Word Wizard by Cathryn Falwell
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