It can be hard for kids in school to understand boundaries like hitting, biting, or pulling. But imagine how much harder it would be if you were a dinosaur and all of your classmates were tasty! We Don’t Eat Our Classmates! by Ryan T. Higgins tells the story of a young T-Rex who gets in trouble on her first day of school when she can’t fight the urge to eat the other kids.
Penelope is a T-Rex who loves ponies because they’re so tasty. On her first day of school, she puts on her pony backpack, carries her pony lunchbox, and finds out that all of her classmates are delicious human children. After getting in trouble for eating them, the teacher makes her spit them out. She doesn’t understand why it’s not okay to eat the other students… until the class goldfish bites her finger.
Having spent the past five years working in a preschool, I can attest to the fact that the best way to help a child through tough behaviors is to help them understand how it feels when someone treats them the same way. A combination of reverse psychology and positive reinforcement works most of the time. A story like Penelope’s can be a silly, but effective, frame of reference for any bad behaviors you’re trying to stop.
Ryan T. Higgins is the brilliant mastermind behind the Mother Bruce series and I see potential for Penlope to be equally as popular and beloved. This rambunctious little T-Rex just wants to have friends, ponies, three hundred tuna fish sandwiches, and one juice box. That’s all she wants, that’s all she needs.
The illustrations are charming, as is to be expected from Higgins. There are lots of fun details to find if you examine each page thoroughly. And if you get the hardcover copy in its initial release, take a peek under the dust jacket for another fun surprise after you read the story.
Whether your child is biting, hitting, pulling, or eating their classmates (or whether someone else is biting, hitting, pulling, or eating them), they will love and relate to Penelope in We Don’t Eat Our Classmates! by Ryan T. Higgins. There’s never been a funnier, more charming way to approach this topic than with this delightful book.