Customer Reviews

Elizabite: Adventures of a Carnivorous Plant

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a botanist, I particularly like that this book has a plant for a main character! As a parent, I like the message of the story, that is being different isn't bad. Elizabite begins as a "different" plant, treated with caution and potential scorn, but soon shows how her difference is her strength and saves the day. The illustrations are wonderful - I noticed something new each time I read the book, from grateful smiles on the faces of insects as Elizabite is captured to tie-ins to previous pages. The language is rich, and the only change I made was to substitute "hot dogs" for "frankfurters" when reading to my kids so they would understand what it meant. Great book for anyone's shelf.

I still have my 40 year old copy of this wonderful book, which I have enjoyed re reading to my 3 year old. The rhymes are better than average (for this age group), and the premise, while familiar to us now as "The little shop of Horrors", still seems fresh when told and illustrated by HA Ray. If you like Curious George you'll love Elizabite.

For some years this picture book by the great H.A. Rey (of Curious George fame)was out of print and now it's back. As ever, Rey's drawings are expressive and fun. However, the story itself is a little problematic; Elizabite is a carnivorous plant who keeps eating things she shouldn't and growing, which sounds funny but is actually kinda weird and frightening, especially when she tries to eat a scientist towards the end. Small kids who aren't put off by this kind of thing may enjoy it anyway, or slightly older kids, maybe. Like "Cecily G and the 9 Monkeys" which features a giraffe removing its own skin, there is something a little unintentionally disturbing about Rey's more obscure, offbeat efforts. Stick to the CG books and to the recently rediscovered "Whiteblack the Penguin."

Wonderful book! A nice departure from modern kids books that are just about rainbows and friendship and puppies. Elizabite is a friendly, cheerful carnivorous plant. Contrary to a previous review, she does not try to eat the scientist in the end. She bites his finger when he digs her out of the wild, then bites a dog's tail, the maid's bottom, the beard of a professor, then swallows (temporarily) a burgler before being taken, smiling all the while, to a zoo where she has her plant babies.

My four-year-old giggles throughout. I love that Elizabite is a meat-eater but she's not agressive or mean (except when a dog steals her hotdog). Also, the vocabulary is, as usual with older picture books, challenging. Words like delight, botanist, delay, victorious, triumph, fond, minus, unsuspecting, tempting, declares, evidence, enterprise, outstanding - these are vocabulary-builders for young children. Please don't have any reservations about the tone of the book; it's a keeper.

This book was read to me as a child. I had to get it for my niece's daughter so she could also enjoy it.