I'd Really Like to Eat a Child (Picture Book)

A scrawny little crocodile wants the opportunity to bite off more than he can chew. He's tired of bananas; today he'd like to eat a child. But he's smaller than he thinks, and the little girl he chooses for his first meal puts him in his place—she picks him up and tickles his tummy! The little crocodile is going to have to eat a lot of bananas and grow a lot bigger before he can add children to his menu! Simple yet hilarious artwork brings this droll story to life.

Oh, growing up is so hard! There's so much you want and so much you can't do yet. Little Achilles is a crocodile who decides one morning that he's grown beyond his diet of bananas. "Today, I’d really like to eat a child," he tells his mother. She reasons with him: "What an idea!...Well, children don't grow on banana trees, only bananas do, and that's what I have for breakfast!" But Achilles won't be swayed, not even by sausage or cake. And when he happens upon a girl child by the river, it looks like his culinary dream might come true...

French author-illustrator team Sylviane Donnio and Dorothee de Monfreid have perfectly captured the hubris of childhood in this droll story. Young Achilles is so darn cute, and so sure of himself, readers will fall instantly in love. And the encounter with the girl at the river bank is priceless. --Emilie Coulter