Snake Supper

Alternating whole and half pages provide plenty of surprises in a tale of Snake and his search through the forest for something good to eat, starting with a mouse and ending with his efforts to consume an elephant.

Kindergarten-Grade 2?This story is similar in concept to Robert Leydenfrost's The Snake That Sneezed (Putnam, 1970; o.p.), but it is a much thinner tale. A yellow and blue snake swallows four successively bigger animals. When he encounters an elephant, he has to open his mouth VERY wide. The elephant takes advantage of this by inserting a stick and thereby propping the snake's mouth open. He then pulls out all of the animals. After the dazed reptile recovers, he slithers on in search of more food. The text is minimal and predictable. Illustrations are done in simplified shapes with watercolor washes over heavy black-line drawings. All of the characters have large bulging eyes and exaggerated expressions. An offering that can be easily skipped.?Alexandra Marris, Rochester Public Library, NY
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Alternating whole and half-pages put a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't twist on a tale of mealtime mayhem. In short order, a hungry snake swallows a mouse, a goat, two chimps and a tiger-but instead of supper, the ravenous reptile winds up with his just deserts. And while kids might be initially alarmed by this wholesale feasting, they will likely applaud the solution achieved by an ingenious elephant. Durant's no-frills storytelling relies on a heavy dose of kid-pleasing sound effects: "'Rrrrrr! Rrrrr!' roared the tiger. 'Sssssssupper,' hissed the snake." Parker's watery colors and rudimentary illustrations, however, are less successful, with bug-eyed animals exhibiting often ungainly expressions. The book's shape-longer horizontally than vertically-allows the snake to stretch out to his full, polka-dotted length, but little advantage is taken of the half-page inserts. Ages 3-6.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.