Who Ate Steve?
Susannah Lloyd and Kate Hindley
Nosy Crow

Here’s a deliciously tongue-in-cheek tale wherein, in best teacherly voice, the narrator embarks on a lesson about size and to that end has enlisted the services of Marcel, a corvid of some sort, as an exemplar of big and earthworm Steve, to represent small, and like Marcel, sports a hat.
However Marcel’s undesirable behaviour soon annoys the teacher/narrator. The teacher part of myself was greatly amused by the words and different type used to show this: ‘I’m waiting, Marcel. We are ALL waiting. … Thank you. AND his HAT, if you please … That wasn’t so hard, was it?’

As you would expect Marcel’s natural instinct is to consume his fellow helper and his continuing efforts so to do – each of which is thwarted – increase the narrator’s frustration at being unable to deliver the lesson in its entirety as the end of the book draws nigh.

You are probably wondering if we do learn about size before the final page; the answer is in the affirmative and there’s a superbly satisfying twist on the last spread.

With the combination of that memorable voice created by Susannah Lloyd and Kate Hindley’s brilliant comical illustrations, in particular those showing Marcel’s facial expressions, this has to be the funniest picture book I’ve read for many months. Share it wherever and whenever you can.