KS1 Book topic: The Incredible Book Eating Boy

The Incredible Book Eating Boy helps children to work up an appetite for reading that will continue to nourish them well into the future, says Judy Clark...

Just the title of this book is enough to intrigue young readers to open its pages. And, once they do, they quickly lose themselves in the quirky and surprising world of Henry, the Incredible Book Eating Boy. For me, I only have to glimpse the author’s name and I’m sold. This is yet another amazing gem from the hand and mind of the supremely original Oliver Jeffers.

Perhaps it’s because hand and mind combine so perfectly with Jeffers’ work that The Incredible Book Eating Boyserves up such a visual and mental feast for children. In the story, we follow Henry as he discovers the world of literature. The plot is complimented by illustrations that incorporate pages from old books – even Henry’s bedroom curtains appear to be made from sections of a French play. It’s the perfect concept for teachers who are passionate about books and want to plant a seed that will grow into a lifelong love of reading.

However, while we want our children to devour books of all shapes and sizes, Henry’s approach is somewhat more literal, and has some surprising and hilarious consequences.

1 Hungry for books

Jeffers always respects the maturity of his young readers, which I suspect is one of the reasons they so love his work. The Incredible Book Eating Boy is no exception. The opening page draws us in: “Henry loved books. But not quite like you and I love books, no. Not quite…”

Shall we stop right there? Explore with your class their love of reading and share your own passion, which is always infectious. There is currently much talk about encouraging children to read for pleasure, and there are many ways to use this story as a starting point.
It can be interesting to bring in the books you loved as a child. Share your favourite authors, and read poems you learnt when you were the children’s age. They are always intrigued by the idea of you as a child, and seeing the dog- eared, yellowing pages of your past loves (OK, you may not be as old as me but you get the idea) is a wonderful way of instilling the concept of how special and lasting our encounters with books are.

Why not have a favourite book morning where each child brings their own personal ‘old friend’ to share? Even better, encourage parents and family members to bring in their favourites. Create a display of the books with a quote from each owner saying why they chose their book.

The same idea can be extended to the whole school with a ‘Best Book in the World’ week where all staff and pupils bring in and talk about their special book. This could include a book swap morning where children persuade someone else to try their favourite and, once they have read it, compare thoughts.

2 Workupan appetite

We go on to discover Henry’s unusual penchant for the written word. We’re introduced to his seemingly normal family, and we discover how his strange eating habits began whilst licking the Yellow Pages one afternoon. (He was distracted by a cat. I’ll leave it to you to find out what the cat was doing – which the children find hilarious, of course.) He started small with a word, then graduated to a sentence, a page, then finally a whole book. After a bit of practice, he manages a whole book in one go.

With Henry exhibiting some unusual traits, what do the children imagine the rest of his family is like? What might they think of his new-found diet? There is a lovely scene showing Henry’s family sat at the dining table watching him tuck in. Make a tableau of the moment and ‘thought track’ each family member. Or role-play the conversation, freeze framing occasionally to hear a specific character when signalled.
There’s a lovely opportunity here to think about and play around with some grammar. With what types of words did Henry start off? A few adjectives, a tasty adverb or two, or perhaps a yummy compound sentence? I wonder how each word tasted? As a class, you might like to create a grammar menu:

Today’s Specials
> Deep fried adjectives
> Capital letter soup
> Fillet of paragraph, served with exclamation marks on the side
> Slow roasted adverbs, with comma sauce

Make a collection of different types of books and spread these out on the floor (those with old pages, small ones, thin ones, huge fat dictionaries, those with different sorts of paper, picture books etc.) and create a word cloud of descriptive vocabulary together. Which books do the children think would take Henry’s fancy? Which would they choose to gobble down?

As Henry transforms into ‘The Incredible Book Eating Boy,’ he sees himself on stage performing, and dreams his fame will spread. Perhaps you could write his application for Britain’s Got Talent, or create a short leaflet or advert to promote his unique show: coming to a town near you…

3 What would you eat?

The fantastic consequence of eating books for Henry was that, ‘The more he ate, the smarter he got.’ And so we find ourselves exploring with Henry his new life of being incredibly intelligent – yes, even smarter than his teacher in school.

He eats all sorts of books and each one makes him an expert on whatever he is digesting. Use this example to ask the children about the tomes they would wolf down if it meant they would retain the knowledge within, and to collect together as many examples as they can: atlas, dictionary, storybook, joke book – even a maths book! For Henry, red books were a gourmet snack; send your class on a red book search across the school and explore all of the different content they hold.

A library visit would complement here as the range and catalogue they hold helps expand children’s idea of the endless diversity and purpose of books available. Discussions with pupils around the purpose of reading (enjoyment, empathy and information) would be interesting to explore.

Opportunities for lots of great explanation writing present themselves. There is a super diagram in The Incredible Book Eating Boy that shows how eating a book makes you smart. In Talk for Writing style, use this as a model and then ask the children to innovate and apply the same principles in a new context. Drawing on themes from the book, they could explain how to look after a goldfish, how to complete a crossword in record time, or how to build a rocket.

Henry ends up on a quiz show because of his superb general knowledge and this can be the inspiration for creating your own. Assign roles: contestant, host, floor manager, audience etc. and set the whole class the task of being researchers on the show to dig up some fascinating trivia questions. When your quiz is ready, ask other classes to come and compete.

4 Regurgitating knowledge

Good things, of course, always come to an end, and the books start to bite back. Poor Henry’s digestive system can’t quite cope with all that information and things begin to go horribly wrong. Monster books invade his nightmares and even Henry’s stomach is rebelling.

Children’s fears and phobias often have many origins. Through the safe context of Henry’s example, discuss with the children books, films, and images that have affected them and perhaps made them scared. Explore how sharing with others can help us to deal with our fears. Other books, like Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears by Emily Gravett, work well to complement here.

Further opportunities for vocabulary work cry out as Henry become a little green around the gills. (Yes, he turns…green, greener, greenest…) Superlative and comparative adjective work begs to be explored.

As maths gets confused with words and even letters begin to become muddled, something has to be done. Henry has many people ready to give him advice. Can children identify who they all are? How about setting up a minidebate in which participants give reasons for and against eating books? Or perhaps set your children some mixed-up calculations to unscramble, or some simple anagrams of high frequency words. Fabulous fun.

I think you can guess the end of this marvellous book, but without spoiling it for you, there is a much healthier way of becoming the smartest person on earth…oh yes, and broccoli is involved. The world of Oliver Jeffers is innovative, often quirky and always a delight for children (and teachers). This cracking book encapsulates all those qualities and more. Do jump in.