Promises, Promises! I Will Not EAT YOU! by Adam Lehrhaupt and Scott Magoon

Theodore lived in a cave.

It was a quiet cave and that's the way he liked it.

Visible only as a pair of vigilant and somewhat scary eyes, Theodore keeps an early morning watch at the mouth of the cave. Is he waiting for breakfast?

A plump but unsuspecting bird flies down and lights in full view.

Theodore thought, "Does it want me to eat it?"

But Theodore wasn't hungry.

"Go away, silly bird. I won't eat you."

The sun climbs higher and Theo watches as a wolf catches his breath in front of the cave and howls.

AROOOOOO!

But Theodore isn't hungry and decides not to eat the wolf. He continues to watch.

A tiger bounds into the grass in front of the cave and stretches with a growl. Theodore mulls the choice over, but still he isn't really hungry.

"I will not eat you," he says.

And then, as the shadows grow long, a different figure appears in Theodore's view. It's a strange figure, a small boy in a hoodie, with a trash can lid for a shield, who gallops up on an invisible steed, brandishes a toy sword, and roars a loud ROOAAARRR!

"Don't bother me, pesky boy," Theodore bellowed, "or I WILL EAT YOU!"

Theodore pokes his long toothy snout out of the cave, but the pesky boy just pokes him in the nostril with his little sword.

"That's IT!

I WILL EAT YOU!"

Theodore emerges, a fairly scary red dragon with scales, claws, and wings. But looking down at the brave little knight-in-training, Theodore finds that he's lost his appetite for eating visitors, and instead heads off to the meadow with the pesky boy, who decorates his new dragon friend with daisy chains, in Adam Lehrhaupt's I Will Not Eat You (Simon and Schuster, 2016). Popular artist Scott Magoon, the illustrator of Michael Rex's hilarious Halloween spoof, Goodnight Goon: a Petrifying Parody lends his artistic talents to this portrayal of a matter-of-fact but picky monster who turns out to have a soft spot for picking posies with a small boy. A not-so-scary monster in the dark cave story that will provide giggles of relief for Lehrhaupt's doughty little hero. Says Kirkus Reviews, "The palette, though dark, is never menacing. Fanciful pretend play for the dragon-slaying preschooler."