The Night Eater

By Ana Juan

I chose this book because I absolutely loved The Elephant Wish and figured that if Ana Juan was such a good illustrator that she probably does okay writing books too. I was right, and this book is currently being added to list I've made for books I want to have in my future classroom. I instantly fell in love with the cute, chubby night eater in pink pajamas wearing the mischievous smirk on his face. I enjoyed reading about how the night would taste, the clouds like cotton candy, the darkness like bitter chocolate, and the stars like bubbles of gas. I also thought the metaphor of the sun greeting the people was very clever. When the night eater decided to stop eating the night because he was embarrassed about being too fat, all the people realize how they need the sun to survive. I saw this as a great opener for a science lesson on the importance of the sun or even what happens when something in our ecosystem is altered. In my opinion, this book ended up being a great lesson on how we shouldn't take things for granted. LOVED it!