Picture Book Pick: Piranhas Don't Eat Bananas

Piranhas Don't Eat Bananas
by Aaron Blabey
Illustrations by the author
Scholastic Press
2018
ISBN: 9781338297133

From the author illustrator who charmed kids with Pig the Pug books, a new star is born!

Brian is a piranha with an unusual appetite for fruit. Other piranhas laugh at his odd diet and declare that piranhas don't eat fruit. He loves peas, silverbeets, bananas, but doesn't offer them any meat. They tell him they'd rather eat feet or bum!

Children will laugh out loud at clever illustrations and cute, quirky prose. Sure to be a childhood favorite read and will appeal to kids who love odd creatures and sea creatures. Brian is one cool piranha!

Highly, highly recommended for all early readers. Quite the fun read!

Fantasy Pick

The Garden of Eve
by K.L. Going
Sandpiper Books/Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
234 pages.

After her mother's untimely death, Evie doesn't believe in fairy tales or magic anymore. If magic were real, wouldn't it have saved her mother? Evie's father moves them to New York state where he has bought a dried up apple orchard and a rickety house next to a cemetary. Evie can't stand the house or the apple orchard. When she sees a boy in the cemetary she befriends him even though she suspects he is a ghost!

An elderly lady gives Evie a box for her 11th birthday telling Evie that the box was left in her care and she was only to give the box to "Eve." Evie opens the box and sees a single seed. Is the seed magical? Where did it come from? What does it do?

Part fairy tale, part ghost story, part Biblical allusion, and symbolic throughout, this novel is magical, compelling, and poetic.

A must-read for grades 4-8. Older readers who enjoy fairy tales will enjoy this one. Simply fantastic!!!Highly recommended. Don't miss this book.



Teacher resources and more at www.klgoing.com