Write2Ignite

With school in full swing, now is the perfect time to check out another picture book: We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins.

Summary

It’s Penelope Rex’s first day of school, and she can’t wait to meet her classmates. But making friends is hard when they’re so delicious!

My Review

This is one of my favorite picture books about going to school, so I thought it would be appropriate to review now.

Penelope Rex is starting school, and she’s nervous. Will her classmates be nice? How many teeth will they have? (This was very important.)

Penelope is surprised when she walks into her classroom and discovers her classmates are all children!

So, she eats them.

The teacher makes her spit them out, telling her, “We don’t eat our classmates!”

Poor Penelope. She tries hard not to eat her classmates, but she can’t help herself. Children are delicious.

Then Penelope notices no one wants to play with her. She goes home sad, because she didn’t make any friends. When she laments this to her father, he asks, “Penelope Rex, did you eat your classmates?”

It takes a little while, but Penelope learns her lesson about not eating children. It comes unexpectedly, and it’s brilliant! I won’t spoil it for you. You need to read it for yourself!

BAHAHAHAHA! I still crack up when I read it, and I have to read it out loud whenever I do. It’s way more fun!

For me and my weird sense of humor, the book just keeps getting funnier and funnier. I giggled, snorted, and out-right guffawed the first time I read it. When I read it to my grandkids (who were much too old for picture books), I laughed so hard, I had tears in my eyes. They cracked up, too.

If you and your kids have a kinda dry, weird, and snarky sense of humor, you will totally enjoy this book. It’s the rare perfect combo of story and artwork.

I host Storytime at our local public library once a month, and the kids there loved this book and the sequels: We Will Rock Our Classmates, and We Don’t Lose Our Class Goldfish.

We Don’t Eat Our Classmates: Written and Illustrated by Ryan T. Higgins

• Publisher: ‎ Disney Hyperion; First Edition (June 19, 2018)
• Language: ‎ English
• Hardcover: ‎ 48 pages
• ISBN-10: ‎ 1368003559
• ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1368003551
• Reading age: ‎ 3 – 6 years, from customers
• Grade level: ‎ Preschool – Kindergarten

Pam Halter is a former home-schooling mom, has been a children’s book author since 1995, a freelance children’s book editor since 2006, and was the children’s book editor for Fruitbearer Publishing until January 2023. She’s the author of Fairyeater, a YA fantasy, and the Willoughby and Friends picture book series (available on her website.) Pam has also published short stories in Ye Olde Dragon Books , the Whitstead Anthologies and Renewed Christmas Blessings. Her first short story won Readers Choice in Realmscapes.  

Pam lives in Southern New Jersey with her husband, Daryl, special needs adult daughter, Anna, and four cats. When she’s not writing, Pam enjoys spending time with her grands, reading, quilting, gardening, cooking, playing the piano, Bible study, and walking long country roads where she discovers fairy homes, emerging dragons, and trees eating wood gnomes.