WASHINGTGON – Piranhas are famous for their razor sharp teeth, voracious appetite and their reputation for eating anything. Piranhas are usually reserved for cartoons in the children’s world in crazy traps for arch-rivals. However, Aaron Blabey has decided to bring them to the book world, with a shocking revelation: Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas.
All about Aaron Blabey
Author Aaron Blabey, courtesy Amazon.com.
So who is Aaron Blabey? He’s an an experienced children’s book creator, and more. According to a short Wikipedia bio,
“[Blabey is] an Australian author of children’s books and artist, who until the mid-2000s was also an actor.
“He is the creator of three best-selling children’s series:
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- Pig the Pug – a picture book series about a mean-spirited little dog.
- The Bad Guys – a New York Times #1 bestselling graphic novel series for junior readers. [The series is] about a gang of scary-looking animals trying to change their bad reputations…
- Thelma the Unicorn – a second picture book series about a plain little pony who pretends to be a unicorn.
“In March 2018, it was announced that a film adaptation of The Bad Guys is in development at DreamWorks Animation and in May 2019, it was announced that Netflix are developing a movie adaptation of Thelma the Unicorn.”
In addition, Blabey has penned a list of stand-alone books like I Need a Hug in addition to Thelma the Unicorn.
Introducing Brian, the very strange piranha fish
Reading this book, we soon learn that Brian is a very unusual piranha. He likes plants. He starts the story by offering his school a banana. Then, as a pair of human feet dangle into the water, he offers a beet. The vegetarian piranha continues to offer his friends different fruits and vegetables until one very fed up fish has had enough of this nonsense. The frustrated fish lets loose tirade of things that piranhas absolutely don’t eat.
Afterwards, Brian promises not to say anything else about his food choices if the other piranhas simply try what he has to offer. The rest of the fish devour the platter of food that Brian offered. But much to their surprise, they actually like the fruit and vegetables. There’s a lesson in there for those legions of picky eaters that will likely be the audience for this delightful little dinner table sermon with a useful moral.
Why This Book Is a Good Read
Dust jacket for “Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas, by Aaron Blabey. Courtesy of Scholastic Books.
Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas is a cute, accessible book that tackles the ever present problem involved with getting young children – and maybe a few older ones as well! – to try new or unfamiliar foods.
Since this book specifically talks about fruits and vegetables, it may be helpful for parents of those seriously picky eaters who would rather avoid anything that grows from the ground or on a tree.
The book’s art work is vibrant and lively with bright colors and lots of white space on the page. That gives the text room to breathe.
Better yet, the piranhas have distinctly individual characters that make their toothy underbites more silly and less scary.
Even better still, Blabey’s story is written in rhyme, like so many children’s books, which makes it an easy read. The text is simple and short. So even very young children with short attention spans more attuned to videos than books should not lose interest in the story.
Finding the Book
Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas by Aaron Blabey (ISBN: 978-1-338-29713-3) was first published in 2015 in Australia. In July of 2019, Scholastic Books published it in the United States. It is available as a hardcover or eBook. You can find Blabey’s books on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or via the author’s link to Scholastic Books.
Listening to the Book on YouTube
Readings — with an Australian accent! — of Piranhas and other Blabey books are available via YouTube videos. Here’s the available reading of Piranhas.
— Headline image: Illustration from Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas, by Aaron Blabey,
courtesy Scholastic Books and Aaron Blabey’s website.
