The Book That Eats People, written by John Perry and illustrated by Mark Fearing
If you decide to take our advice and check out this book, please be careful. It eats people. First it ate Sammy Ruskin. Then it trashed a pile of books and ate a library security guard before disguising itself as a book about dolphins to get a little girl to take it home with her. Yes…the book ate her too. AND a group of children who found it in a box in an alley! So the police put it in jail, where it ate another prisoner. The book gets sent to the zoo for rehabilitation and they try feeding it all sorts of delicious things, but to no avail. The book CRAVES people!
Some survival tips for handling this book:
1. Close it and put heavy things on top if you hear growling and think it’s getting hungry.
2. Never ever read it alone!
3. Never read or hold the book while you have food on your hands or in your pockets.
4. If you hear a noise ‘like an octopus in a tub of yogurt’, the book is starving and you’d better put it near somebody who looks like they might be delicious (every man for himself when it comes to people-eating books, I suppose).
This book is hilariously dark and gruesome, I love it! It’s awesome for reading out loud, especially if you’re not afraid to rant and rave and carry on (my personal specialty!). It’s especially fun if the book occasionally jumps off your lap and tries to eat the audience (okay, maybe that would be traumatizing for a more sensitive child, but mine thought it was funny…use good judgment here, folks!). The art is fantastic and has a dark humour all its own.
I really consider The Book That Eats People a must-have for a children’s horror collection. Run out and grab a copy! Just exercise caution – the book is always hungry.
Dreadful Tales 