Freya and her siblings – one older, one much younger – spot a snake on their island, so the father hunts it down, and eventually gets to smash its head in. And before you complain about me, it really is as blunt as that. Freya then complains about the dad, before being made to be more clued in about having to prevent snakebites and fatalities and suchlike. It's really quite the most bizarre thing – that, or the way this ended up being award-nominated in its original language. The story is useful, to an extent, for those who live alongside lethal animals, but if you don't expect it it's really quite awful, and the art really wasn't to my taste either. Finally the text is too dense and in too small a font to appeal to young eyes, even if it takes up little of the page each time. So I'm struggling to find positives. One and a half stars.

This book is too long and while I would not say it’s inappropriate it’s just not one I think most parents want to read to their kids. Freya sees a snake. She tells her parents. Dad spends a few pages trying to catch the snake. Instead of catching it, he kills it. Freya calls him a murderer And after that I don’t care anymore. I understand the need for books like these but first off this is too long. Secondly there’s no specific reason given why the snake has to be caught. It appears they’re in nature where snakes should be and the lesson should be leave the snake alone and it will leave you alone. Instead, we have a fear of snakes that ends up with Dad being portrayed as a murderer. this is not a book I enjoyed or whatever recommend.

Netgalley ARC - well that was not a fun read. I relate to the sense of injustice of our narrator, but I hate that there was like... no resolution or real comfort or even a reason. The snake literally didn't have to die. It wasn't doing anything.

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.