[BOOK REVIEW] No Dinner! by Jessica Souhami

Title:  No Dinner!

Author:  Jessica Souhami

Genre:  Family / Animals / India / Food

Year Published: 1999

Year Read:  2016

Publisher:  Marshall Cavendish

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 5+ (Some Scary Scenes)

Buy on:  Amazon  //  Book Depository 

 

I have read many folktales that have originated from India and this particular tale called “No Dinner!” which was written and illustrated by Jessica Souhami was really interesting to me as the heroine of the story (a frail old woman) thinks of a creative way to outwit the dangers in the forest!

The story starts off with a frail old woman going to visit her granddaughter on the other side of the forest.  But first, the old woman has to avoid all the dangers of the forest which includes meeting up with a wolf, a bear and a tiger.

Can the old woman make it to her granddaughter’s home without getting eaten by the dangers of the forest?

Read this book to find out!

Jessica Souhami has done a great job at writing and illustrating this story as the old woman was written in an extremely clever way, especially with how she dealt with the wolf, the bear and the tiger through her journey to her granddaughter’s home!  I also liked the way that Jessica Souhami wrote the relationship between the old woman and her granddaughter (although a bit brief) as it shows that the granddaughter and the old woman care for each other and are also both shown to be extremely clever when dealing with the dangers of the forest.  Jessica Souhami’s artwork is extremely cute and creative to look at as the characters are not drawn with black outlines that would define their shapes as the natural colors of the characters shows their shapes instead.  I also loved the images of the bear, the wolf and the tiger as they all look truly threatening as they hover over the old woman and some of their facial expressions look a bit menacing.

The reason why I gave this story a four star rating was because I felt that the characters were a bit too flat.  I felt that there should have been more done with the characters, such as seeing more of the old woman’s relationship with her granddaughter or maybe see the old woman engage in some mind games with the animals to expand more on her clever nature.

Overall, “No Dinner!” is a cute book about cleverness and trickery that children will enjoy!  I would recommend this book to children ages five and up since the scenes of the old woman meeting up with the dangerous animals of the forest might scare smaller children.