The Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman, Marla Frazee (Illustrator)

From the Publisher

Peter wants only milk, Lucy won’t settle for anything but homemade lemonade, and Jack is stuck on applesauce. Each new addition to the household brings a new demand for a special meal. What’s a mother to do? “[A] highly comic rhyming romp that surprisingly (and nicely) twists into a birthday story.”—School Library Journal

Children's Literature

One of Mrs. Peters' children will only drink milk. Another will only drink pink lemonade. A third only eats applesauce. Poor Mrs. Peters! She has seven children and each one has his or her own special dish. Mrs. Peters is so exhausted from preparing seven different meals, three times a day, day after day that she almost forgets her own birthday. The children haven't forgotten, though. They get up at the crack of dawn to prepare their mother an unforgettable birthday breakfast. This amusing story is told entirely in rhyme. The illustrations are hilarious. Picky eaters and children who long for a large family will love this book!

Kirkus Reviews

Hoberman (The Cozy Book, 1995, etc.) renders the story of finicky eaters with an understatement that both children and those who cook for them will appreciate.

Persnickety eaters—they are Mrs. Peters's cross to bear, and she has seven of them. One wants warm (not hot, not cold) milk, another lemonade (not from a can, but homemade), or applesauce, or strained oatmeal, hot bread, eggs poached and fried (for the twins). Although she loves her children, her efforts to keep them fed drive her batty—"Creamy oatmeal, pots of it! Homemade bread and lots of it! Peeling apples by the peck, Mrs. Peters was a wreck." On her birthday, the kids do the cooking, and from their respective preferences emerges a delicious cake. Hoberman gives this tale a droll rhyme, singsongy and fresh as paint, while Frazee's pen-and-ink illustrations, with a touch of Hilary Knight's chaos to them, mold the story with warmth and mayhem: The Peterses live in a Walden-like setting that grows with the family and mellows over the years. Point taken—the antidote for picky eaters (and for the happy trials of large families) is a good sense of humor.

Product Details

• Forewords & Introductions

Forewords & Introductions

Cheerfully ignoring all notions of good nutrition, Mary Ann Hoberman has created a happy, affectionate celebration of family chaos and cooperation for picky eaters of any age. Marla Frazee's lively depiction of the hungry Peters brood and their hardworking parents will have even the fussiest readers laughing.