The Seven Silly Eaters

Written by: Mary Ann Hoberman

Illustrated by: Marla Frazee

           The Seven Silly Eaters is a fictional picturebook that follows the lives of the Peters family.  As each of the seven children is born, Mrs. Peters discovers their unique picky eating habits, in which each child will only eat one food prepared in a specific manner.  While Mrs. Peters works hard to meet the demands of each of her children, her patience runs thin since the work never seems to ease up.  At her lowest moment, Mrs. Peters heads to bed thinking that her children will forget her birthday the following day, but the Peters children have a special surprise in store that changes the lives of the Peters family for good!

          Mary Ann Hoberman lays out the text with an AABBCC rhyme scheme that just begs to be read aloud.  She crafts her language with such fluidity that it just naturally rolls off the tongue through her creation of mesmerizing verse.  The language is especially relatable to young readers because of this rhyming and repetitive structure.  The rhyme scheme throughout the text also highlights the humor within the story, while also emphasizing specific words that could be used to teach vocabulary lessons (ex: "mutter feebly").

          While the text has a musical rhythm that pleases the readers ears, the book would not be complete without Marla Frazee's fantastic illustrations.  Frazee also illustrates the currently popular Clementine Series, one of which I reviewed earlier (The Talented Clementine).  In The Seven Silly Eaters, Frazee utilizes a muted color palette to draw attention to the family within each picture, as opposed to these setting, which allows the picturebook to take on a relatively timeless quality.  Frazee specializes in drawing humans, especially children, and pays great attention to facial expressions and body positioning in each illustration.  As I was reading this story, I realized that the illustrations are integral to the story, because there would be minimal character development and connection without Frazee's action-packed illustrations depicting the ever-increasing chaos of the Peters family.

           With respect to the illustrations, Frazee also utilizes a variety of illustration sizes and styles throughout the book.  On the early pages of the book, she draws smaller pictures that seem calm, which serves to give readers some distance before drawing us completely into the story with her first larger-scale drawing that takes up a full page.  Once the story picks up, the full-page drawings take control, and are occasionally interrupted by a sequence of small vignettes (Ex: Mrs. Peters dancing excitedly with each of her children late in the story) to depict movement and time passing quickly.  Overall, there is so much going on in every drawing that the readers eye will always be drawn to different aspects of the illustrations, making this an exciting book to read repeatedly.

          As I mentioned earlier, I think it would be a crime to not share this text aloud because the rhythmic structure of the text becomes clear and engaging when read aloud.   I think this book is perfect for young readers (K-3rd grade), and is especially great as a humorous way to deal with the topic of picky eating or nutrition.  It could also be used in connection to studies of families or just as a great story to share with your family!  

Some examples of teaching resources to go along with this book: http://www.teachingbooks.net/tb.cgi?tid=21686&a=1#ActivityGuides