“Ten fat sausages, sizzling in the pan…” begins a fresh take on a familiar nursery rhyme, with every other sausage refusing to go “bang” or “pop” and attempting escape instead. Most are not successful, due to a cat, fan, blender and so forth. But, at the end, two escape – not unscathed.

While the notion of a redo of a nursery rhyme is fun, this particular rendition is rather dark and somewhat unpalatable, so to speak. Illustrations of whirring blenders full of pulverized sausage and sliced or bitten sausages are just…yucky. The accompanying text explains each sausage’s end to the general rhyme of “Ten little monkeys”, but falls short on occasion in its faithfulness to the original rhyming sequence.

There are other “food” picture books out there that might be more fun. Or, buy this one and wait for the reactions when you read it aloud. That might be fun, too.