Everybody's Somebody's Lunch
Cherie Mason
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
1998 Tilbury House
ISBN: 0884482006

When her pet cat doesn't come home, a young girl must come to terms with the cycle of life & death.

One morning when Mouser, her old cat didn't come home, she went hunting, wondering into the familiar forest at the edge of her family's saltwater farm, remembering it in all the seasons. She's always enjoyed the beautiful underbrush & often gathers plants to eat. Now, however, she's come upon a bloody mess of fur & bones with a collar which tells her this was her friend.

Stricken, she sits on a fallen log crying, remembering Mouser, until she spies a little shrew nearby & watches as it hunts & eats... first a berry, then a beetle, then a slug. Then a snake slithers forward, hoping for a nice breakfast, except the shrew turns on the snake, bites it with its venomous teeth, & proceeds to eat it! Then she sees a spider gobbling a fly caught in its web. It's all too much & the girl runs home & talks to her parents about the pain she's feeling.

What do you say to your child about how Everybody's Somebody's Lunch?

In this day & age when most of us live in cities, & most of us have pets, I suppose we do have to teach our kids about how Everybody's Somebody's Lunch. Cherie Mason sets out on this delicate task beautifully assisted by Gustav Moore's immediate & captivating illustrations.

& they have done it really well! A very good book to talk about what we eat, & why.

More from Cherie Mason: Wild Fox: A True Story
(07/17/05)

Rebecca