"Once upon a time, a little girl named Katerina-Elizabeth took an ocean liner to visit her grandmother in Scotland."

The best picture book we've gotten from the library in a while is The Luck of the Loch Ness Monster: A Tale of Picky Eating by A.W. Flaherty. This is a cute story about a girl who takes a transatlantic ocean liner trip by herself. Her parents scheduled her meals for her and she was put down for oatmeal every morning. She isn't a fan of oatmeal so she throws it overboard. A small worm happens to be where it lands and he eats it and loves it. He goes looking for more and follows the ship, growing as he eats more and more oatmeal. They eventually make it to Loch Ness and the worm becomes a monster and ends up staying there, cruising around and eating each morning as people chuck their oatmeal into the lake.

This is a silly story with fantastic dark illustrations by Scott Magoon. The worm is a little odd looking but the cool, creepy color scheme and the atmospheric ocean liner scenes are a pleasant change from some of the other primary color-based picture books.

Z is a fantastic eater (except for mashed potatoes and eggs ... who knows?!?) so we didn't need this book for the moral. We just needed it for the cool factor because who doesn't love the Loch Ness Monster?

Traveling the beautiful briny,
K and Z


Buy The Luck of the Loch Ness Monster: A Tale of Picky Eating on Amazon or find it at your local library.