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4.55 AVERAGE
4.55 AVERAGE
I don’t know if the pictures or the text win me over but WOW! This is a fun and funny book that has a great lesson - I laughed out loud several times when Higgins caught me off guard-“because pony are delicious”.
Age: Kindergarten-2nd grade
School: First day, new school
Delightfully hilarious take on manners in the classroom.
Also, my favorite "accidental" sticker placement. Four books got to the library shelf like this because "that's always where the Popular Picks sticker goes." I still don't believe her.
School: First day, new school
Delightfully hilarious take on manners in the classroom.
Also, my favorite "accidental" sticker placement. Four books got to the library shelf like this because "that's always where the Popular Picks sticker goes." I still don't believe her.
Ryan T. Higgins’ We Don’t Eat Our Classmates is one of the most laugh-out-loud fun children’s illustrated books I’ve had in my hands in quite some time. Poor Penelope T. rex struggles against her true nature as she becomes acquainted with her new classmates. It seems to be a nearly impossible lesson to learn to not swallow up every child in the classroom, because as noted in the book, “children are delicious!” Eventually, Penelope catches on in this story to help real-life kids learn not to yell, or punch, or shove - things that might be ok at home, perhaps even part of “survival mode” - because, as Penelope learns: people are better suited as friends than as lunch.
Cute and hilarious! My five-year-old loved it so much he read it twice back-to-back.
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Read as part of the Around the Year in 52 books challenge. Week 41: A book from the 2018 Good Reads Choice Awards
This book is SO FUNNY! There are so many wonderful little comments sprinkled throughout that are shared as if they're normal..., but they're not! For example, ponies are Penelope's favorite animal (normal) because they're delicious (not so normal). Penelope's penchant for eating her classmates takes a turn when she herself is "eaten" by the class goldfish and she has a change of heart. I loved this one; I hope we see other Penelope books in the future!
Penelope Rex is nervous about school, and things take a turn when she discovers her classmates are children and she eats them. (Spoiler: she spits them back out.) Her behavior doesn't earn her many friends, but an event that teaches her empathy changes everything.
A great read to talk about how to treat others and empathy. The illustrations are well done, I especially liked the facial expressions on everyone.
A great read to talk about how to treat others and empathy. The illustrations are well done, I especially liked the facial expressions on everyone.
Do we need to experience something first-hand in order to have empathy for the same thing happening to others? Does what we do to other people need to be done to us in order to change our own behavior? We Don't Eat Our Classmates suggests that is the case. Penelope T-Rex eats all her classmates on the first day of school. Then they don't want to be friends with her. Sometimes she occasionally eats one as a snack, but she spits them out quickly. Resisting the urge to eat children is hard. After a goldfish bites her finger, she realizes how much it must suck to be eaten, and she stops doing it. "Once Penelope found out what it was like to be someone' snack, she lost her appetite for children."
This is a popular narrative arc, both in children's and adult fiction. I've read many stories like this -- asshole is an asshole until someone is an asshole to them in the exact same way they're an asshole, then they change their ways. This is a cute twist on that trope, but is that the way it has to be? Is experiencing pain the only way to develop true empathy? Or is it just a more dramatic way to tell a story? Like Penelope lying awake thinking about how her classmates taste, I'll be up for a while thinking about these questions.
This is a popular narrative arc, both in children's and adult fiction. I've read many stories like this -- asshole is an asshole until someone is an asshole to them in the exact same way they're an asshole, then they change their ways. This is a cute twist on that trope, but is that the way it has to be? Is experiencing pain the only way to develop true empathy? Or is it just a more dramatic way to tell a story? Like Penelope lying awake thinking about how her classmates taste, I'll be up for a while thinking about these questions.