The Incredible Book Eating Boy

From a single word, to a sentence, to a page, to a whole book, Henry the book eating boy’s appetite for books becomes insatiable and his brain smarter and smarter as the ingested information rushes to it. Until the day he begins to feel ill and can no longer digest the books he has eaten. But how else can he absorb them?

From the publication details hand written in pencil as though copied out by a child, Jeffers plays with every element of this new picture book. Yellowing exercise books, old stock cards, text in Czech, dictionary pages and title pages inscribed with a long dead owner’s name and date are the paper onto which he superimposes text and illustration and which then provide additional, many layered commentary on the story. Visual play continues as diagrams and cross sections reveal the contents of Henry’s innards.

Children know about hunger for knowledge and will much enjoy Jeffers’ witty take on how to ingest it.