The Gobbler

I thought this was a fun, silly story - something a child is really going to love reading, but with a really good message at heart. It's definitely something I'll see if I can recommend to my library purchasers, as I do think it would be a good book to have available. It teaches a good lesson about not fighting too much with your siblings, and I think that it'll be a very helpful book to have to hand, as this definitely is an issue that comes up a lot, and this will be a good, subtle way to teach it to them without them realising.

My daughter absolutely loved this book! She is all about “spooky stuff” and determined this was “so spooky and fun”!! The artwork is great!

This was a good time with goofy illustrations and a positive message.

It’s a fun and silly way to teach children how important kindness is and being in control of their emotions.

The illustrations were very cute. I enjoyed them a lot. The wording was wonderful. The first page made me laugh. The moral was a great lesson for children so long as they are also taught about stranger danger. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I would recommend for parents with very young children or children who need to learn about kindness. I believe this book is written in such a way that it can also help teach literacy.

“Remember, even on the smoothest of roads, potholes happen. Let each pothole be a stroke of inspiration on the canvas of your life. But whatever you do, don’t feed the Gobbled!”

THE GOBBLER is a cute book, with a nice message. If you feed malice and strife, it grows and grows. Love defeats all, etc. A nice book, with a nice message. I got a real kick out of seeing all the different little gobblers - that was my favorite part!!

A big criticism I have is the lack of rhythm in the author’s poetry. Not all the paragraphs have the same rhythm or rhyme, which was really distracting and made the book feel clunky.

Overall though, this was a good book.

I can’t wait to share this book with my mom who is an elementary school librarian. This is the perfect educational book to help children understand the spread of negative feelings and how easy it is to get lost in our anger.

I got this book as an ARC.

This book was a short story about the gobbler, two brothers, and learning kindness. Great lesson for kids.

I thought that it was a cute story and my children enjoyed listening to it. They very much loved the pictures and the rhyming. It kept their attention through the whole book. My kids even made connections to similarities between the story and their lives which was great. I enjoy that they were able to learn something out of this story.

I do wish the book had been a little longer. There were a couple jumps made where I thought I had skipped a page. Having some of those gaps filled in to bridge the story a little more would have been nice. Still a well written and fun story though.

Overall I felt like it was worth a read and will be reading it again during our regular story nights.

I have rated this book 4 stars.

Unique and intriguing illustrations that definitely exist to capture the kids attention while weaving a story full of purpose! To subtly teach kids how to love, share, and be respectful!

This is a cute picture book with beautiful illustrations and a great message for kids without being preachy. I enjoyed this rhyming book, but it could’ve used a bit more polish with the rhymes. Some paragraphs or sentences didn’t flow as well as others. But I still enjoyed this story about being kind to each other. I really loved the artwork, especially of all the monster creatures. I think kids would really like those drawings. This is a wonderful book for younger kids to learn how easily hate can spread and how to combat it with love and kindness. Definitely recommend!

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. These are my own thoughts and opinions.

The Gobbler - A story about how hate grows when it is fed

I was given the opportunity to read this as an ARC. I read this book with my 8 year old son, he loved the illustrations and the concept of the story. It is a wonderful method of teaching young children just how quickly hate can spread but also how easily it con be overpowered by kindness.

I enjoyed the rhyming aspect of the writing but do believe there are certain parts of the book that could have been worded better. Overall, this was a great story that both my children and myself enjoyed. It kept their attention and taught them an underlying lesson of the importance of love and kindness.

Much thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

"The Gobbler" by E.G. Creel is an exciting story about two kids caught up in an argument, drawing the attention of a creature called the Gobbler, which thrives on hate. They realize they must find a way to defeat it before it harms their village. The book carries a strong message about courage and love, keeping readers hooked as they root for the children to overcome negativity with hope and kindness.

Just read this book with my 8 year old daughter and we really enjoyed it. The rhyming made it easy to read for younger readers and more enjoyable. We found it really funny that the Gobbler kept growing and growing and then more appeared and how they all looked different. I really liked the theme about encouraging people to always be kind and helpful towards others.

The Gobbler is a brilliant little tale about how quickly negativity grows when it is left unchecked, and how bad the consequences can be.

I wish though that a better job had been done with making the rhyming text actually rhyme properly. Because the rhythm is off, which will adversely affect the experience when reading aloud to children.

The gobbler is an ugly little monster that stays hidden away until it senses equally ugly human behaviour. It loves arguments, cruelty, quarrels, meanness or any form of unkindness, because that is quite literally fodder for a gobbler!

And just as unresolved negative emotions grow and grow, so does the gobbler. Indeed as the consequences for unpleasant actions multiply, so do the gobblers.

This book does a fantastic job of illustrating that through an argument between two young children, which quickly gets completely out of control and brings a gobbler infestation upon their village.

The illustrations are nicely done, my only complaint being that the portrayal of the POC looks odd - though the role played by the old woman, for example is very positive, and it is nice to see some diversity.

Overall, this is a well illustrated book, with an important message to deliver. It is strongly recommended for children in the target group age - and beyond. And of course, adults who have yet to learn this lesson! Hence it gets a very high rating, despite the two issues mentioned earlier.

This book has such a positive message that can be interpreted in multiple different ways. The captivating illustrations are definitely a fun addition and intrigued me from the start. This story describes important messages about how fast hate can spread and the impact that love and kindness can have on all of us. I found the words don’t always flow but I don’t feel like it was much of a distraction from the story. In the end, I believe hate multiples in numbers and a number of children will learn something from this book. “Remember, even on the smoothest roads, potholes happen.”

Anger is fed by anger and love is fed by love. Be careful what you feed to others.

Or in other words, you reap what you sow. A very nice story with very graphic (almost scary) illustrations.

📱E-Book Review📱

The Gobbler
EG Creel

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

This was a great story about The Gobbler who lived in a pothole and fed on anger and hate.

When 2 brothers pass by, arguing, the gobbler is tempted out of his hole and as he fed on their anger, he grew and grew.

This had a lovely flow to it and sounded great while read out loud.

I liked the moral of the story, that hate and anger grows and grows and that spreading kindness and happiness will banish the bad feeling and hate (and the nasty gobblers!)

I loved the images too - the gobbler did look a little creepy, so make sure you take a look and judge suitability dependent on how sensitive your child is.
Mine loved them! They thought they were quite cute 🤷🏻‍♀️🤣

The images prompted more discussions through the story, which I always love.

A really enjoyable read that would be great to use for storytime in a group (school or the library) and a nice addition for the home bookshelves too.




💕Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for my ARC copy - this is my honest review 💕

This is a great book to start a conversation or class discussion with children about the often natural responses to fight back when someone encounters mean behavior and the power of kindness to break that pattern. The book is fun to read and has beautiful illustrations. Although the book is probably written for a younger audience, as a teacher of 12-year-olds whose first language is not English, I would enjoy reading this book with my class. In my opinion it is still fun to read and watch for 12-year-olds, the complexity of the text is appropriate for my students' English comprehension level and the topic is very suitable for further exploration.

This is a great picture book showing how hatred and anger are dangerous for others. My nieces loved it and thought the Gobbler was a little scary but funny looking.

The inspiring message of this picture book rates it five stars. This would be an especially good book to share with children who argue and fight (which Gobblers love to eat). The illustrations were unique and fit the story. Sometimes the rhyming text didn’t flow just right, but it didn’t hinder the important lesson being shown.

Well-intentioned, this didn't quite hit the mark for me, even if five star reviews are needed, we are told, to keep the titular beastie away. The Gobbler is something that feeds on strife, anger and animosity, so two needlessly bickering young brothers are ideal for it to grow – and grow, and grow, and then to prove it's not alone… Some really strong art, with great monster designs, do add to the positives here, but alongside that is some really clunkily-rhymed script (before it gives up the ghost completely we get "mother" in a couplet with "ever"), and a touch of wokeness about it all that was a bit uncalled for. All we needed was the fun of reading a simply-conveyed, easy-for-all lesson about not having a spat – which nobody can pretend is original, but was perfectly acceptable in this fashion. Hopefully a delay until the summer of 2024 will only add to what are firm, three-star foundations.