Hello, everybody! Our book today is A Hungry Lion, Or A Dwindling Assortment Of Animals by Lucy Ruth Cummins, a very funny fourth-wall breaking book about a sneaky lion and his animal, um, “friends.” 

There once was a hungry lion and a large assortment of other animals. But page by page, the other animals seem to keep… disappearing… And the lion seems to be getting hungrier and hungrier. Excuse me, Mr. Lion, but do you happen to know where all those other animals went? And what happens when the animals all run out?

This was a fantastic book to read aloud: it’s got a very tongue-in-cheek narrative that gets the audience in on the joke early, and had a final twist ending that I definitely didn’t see coming! The scribbly illustrations are colorful and cute, and add to the book’s sense of absurd fun. It’s a perfect length for baby bookworms, and JJ had a blast reading it, particularly because she could work on her animal identification and noises while we enjoyed the comedy. This one was made to read aloud, and it was a ton of fun for both of us. Definitely Baby Bookworm approved!