I Want to Eat My Brother

PreS-Gr 2–For collections seeking food-related nonsense, look no further. Gaudy (Archipels, for adults) relishes telling the tale of Oskar, a finicky rabbit who won’t accept anything served up by his hapless parents, whose offerings grow increasingly desperate and increasingly weird (after chicken breast and fried eggs, they suggest orangutan steak and rat risotto). Finally, Oskar discovers something appealing—his younger brother—at which point he utters the title phrase. The narrative shifts from a protracted list of (admittedly very funny) bizarre culinary concoctions to an exploration of sibling jealousy. Oskar tells his parents, “He’d be better off in my belly,/ in there, he wouldn’t be as yelly./ He wouldn’t wake me up at night when he cries,/ and both of you would be all mine.” Eventually he relents, realizing that his brother can make himself useful by eating Oskar’s unwanted food. Rea has good fun with the illustrations, especially in the surrealistic vignettes depicting “strawberry dad cake” and “pickled bird brains that can fly.” Grawemeyer gamely takes on the nigh-impossible task of bringing the absurdist text from its original French into English, with mixed results. She makes inspired use of the art as a guide in her pragmatic alterations (“une cake à la tortue,” literally “tortoise cake,” is rendered as “a breakdancing tortoise”). However, English is far less conducive to rhyme than the original language; sets of words that rhyme perfectly in French become tortured slant rhymes. Moreover, the rhythm of the text is often choppy and awkward, hampering the flow for read-alouds. Nevertheless, children will find the book’s premise and imagery hilarious, and they will share plenty of grins while flipping through the pages.