I am so glad that I read this book to myself before reading it aloud to my daughter... I will not be doing so. I am thinking maybe the appeal of this book gets lost in translation between the original Finnish and this English version, at least I hope so. I was pretty shocked by the language used, the way that Freya spoke to her father continually calling him a murderer, the stilted and unrealistic way that he replied to her, and the description of the sisters showing her graphic and scary images and stories. The cover image and title are very misleading for the actual story that unfolds, and the summary isn't much better. I was very disappointed by this one and do not recommend it. Honestly I'd give it 0 stars if that was an option.

I read this book to my 4.5 and 6 year old children. I was anticipating that the book would improve, but it really never did. Snakes should not be killed unless venomous and posing a risk to animals/humans. This was incredibly disappointing. It took longer to explain the reasons we do not kill snakes to my children (who already have a fair understanding of venomous snakes and do not kill wildlife) than it did to read the book. If I had known, I would not have read them this book. Yikes!

I don't even know where to begin with this. I'm glad that I read It ahead of time instead of reading it for the first time with my children. As some one who's entire profession is within the reptile community I was excited to find a book that looked like a little girl and her snake. The cover of this book is so misleading. This is not a happy children's book. I was shocked at the violence in the story and the illustrations that went with it. I was shocked by the language and the daughter repeatedly calling her father a murderer. Although I can't say that I disagree. I was also really disheartened by the misinformation that is being presented. There is absolutely a way to teach children about snake safety especially snakes in the wild. This however was not it.

Okay. So. I did not like this. In some regions of the world it makes sense to have books about being cautious with snakes, but I don’t live in one of those regions and frankly, I just disliked this. The plot was stilted, there wasn’t really any acceptable conflict resolution, I didn’t appreciate how oddly violent the story was, and this art style I dislike. Perhaps I’m too much of a bleeding heart, but there is already such a bad stigma around “undesirable” animals that I don’t find this book informative or charming. Freya was right it was messed up her dad killed that snake. And frankly, the title and cover are misleading as I thought based on the title and the colours and posing of the cover that this was going to be cute and lighthearted. It was not.

The illustrations are absolutely stunning, Overall, the book was well written and I did really enjoy it. Thank you for this advance reading copy!