Do Not Eat Like a Tiger Shark! Wacky Ways Animals Slurp, Chomp and Gulp

If someone told you not to eat like a shark, your response might be, “Why not? What’s wrong with the way that sharks eat?” Kaner provides the answer to your shark question along with why you should not adopt the unusual eating habits of snakes, butterflies, dogs, flamingos, Tasmanian devils, elephants, Amazon horned frogs, bearded vultures, guenon monkeys, chickadees and cows.

The eating habits of each of these critters is treated in a pair of facing pages with Wilson’s spread illustration humourously suggesting what it might look like if children were to attempt to replicate these behaviors. To accompany Kaner’s text admonition not “to drink your milk with your nose, elephant-style, Wilson presents a boy with a twirly straw in each nostril, the straws each leading to a glass of milk. Meanwhile, an elephant’s trunk can be seen immersed in a river/lake. Kaner’s main text explains that elephants don’t actually drink with their trunks but, instead use them to suck up water which they then squirt into their mouths. Wilson’s artwork reinforces the text by showing an elephant that is spraying water into its mouth.

On the two closing pages of Do Not Eat Like a Tiger Shark!, Kaner provides brief additional eating-related information about the book’s creatures. For example:

Snakes

Wonder why a snake’s tongue is forked? The forks allow the snake to know
which direction a scent is coming from – the left or the right.

Design-wise, Do Not Eat Like a Tiger Shark! employs an interesting feature to encourage readers to turn to the next page pair, with that taking the form of a prompt placed in the bottom corner of each recto. Some examples include “And it’s not a good idea to...”, “And it’s bad manners to...” and “and you shouldn’t...”.

A quick read, Do Not Eat Like a Tiger Shark! is both fun and informative.