How to Promenade with a Python (and Not Get Eaten)

Book excerpt: In this hilarious non-fiction chapter book series, a savvy cockroach shares wise tips and tricks to surviving an encounter with a charming predator who may (or may not) want to be your friend. Celeste is a cockroach, and everyone knows that cockroaches are survivors, so who better to give advice on surviving an encounter with a polite predator? Everyone also knows that taking a moonlit promenade with a deadly reticulated python (named Frank) is a very bad idea. But Celeste loves very bad ideas, and she is willing to put your life on the line to prove herself right! Need to stop a python from swallowing you head-first? Wear a lamp shade as a hat! Want to speed up a three-hundred-pound snake? Try roller skates! What's the perfect light snack for a python? A chicken! Using her superior pythonine knowledge, Celeste comes up with various strategies and solutions -- many dangerous, most absurd, but all based on the biology of pythons. Meanwhile, Frank is hatching his own plans. Rachel Poliquin has created a delightfully preposterous premise that, combined with Kathryn Durst's hilarious illustrations, will have readers laughing out loud as they learn about python biology and hunting behavior.