Help! My Aai Wants to Eat Me

by Bijal Vachharajani and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan

“Help! My Aai Wants to Eat Me” by Bijal Vachharajani and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan. Published by Penguin. A humorous story of seven year old Avi who is pretty sure that his Aai wants to gobble him up much to his horror!

Avi has an annoying habit of analysing situations and coming up with the pros as well as cons of each one. He keeps making notes in his mental diary. This time he finds himself in a peculiar and horrendous situation. He begins to feel that his Aai wants to gobble him up. He just can’t understand why she would want to do that as he would definitely not taste good.

Avi starts getting this feeling after watching a wildlife documentary in his EVS class at school. A mama bear eats her sickly second born cub and Avi is shocked! His teacher Miss Mankad explains that many animals are known to do this either due to stress in a zoo or for some nutrition for the mother or to show who is powerful. Avi is the second child and has an elder sister. His Aai has mentioned on quite a few occasions that she is going to eat him. Isn’t this cause enough for worry? Does she really want to eat him? What can he do now? Should he just accept his fate meekly or put up a fight? Read the humour packed story to find out.

My eight year old enjoyed reading the book with me. The story resonated so well with him given that Avi is of a similar age group. Both of us just couldn’t stop chuckling through the story. It was fun to see how children can take something that we casually say as literally true. Most of us (me included of course) have said enough number of times to our children that they are so cute and we are going to eat them. We loved the writing style! Some interesting facts about various creatures have been subtly interwoven in the storyline to express how Avi feels at certain times. The illustrations are equally quirky and bring the characters to life. Overall a delightful read!  

Recommended Age

The book is apt for children aged 7/8+.

Reasons to Read

For a dash of laughter and children are going to enjoy Avi’s wild imagination :D

Where to buy from?

An independent indie bookstore, Funky Rainbow, from where I buy many of my books.

Disclaimer - We received this book from the publisher, Penguin India, for review. Thank you to Greeshma and Mansi, from Penguin, for sending across the book!