How to Eat Fried Worms: Book Review

What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever eaten? Tongue, oxtail, durian? What if you had to eat worms, one a day, for fifteen days? That’s the bet Billy makes on How to eat fried wormsby Thomas Rockwell.

Tom will be second to Billy and Joe will be second to Alan. He can eat the worms as he likes: boiled, stewed, fried, fried. Joe and Alan will provide the worms, but one of them must be present when they eat it, to make sure there is no cheating.

If Billy can do it, Alan will pay him fifty dollars. That would be enough money to buy the mini bike that George’s brother was going to sell before he went off to college.

How bad could a worm taste? Billy had eaten fried liver, salmon bread, pig’s feet. Well…could he use ketchup or mustard or whatever he wanted?

Yes.

Well, the bet was on!

The problems started from day one. Tom was arguing with Alan and Joe, who wanted to get the worm out of a manure pile. They ended up unearthing a night crawler on the other side of the field. A big, fat, juicy, red night crawler.

“Oww!” Billy yelled. “A night crawler is not a worm!“

After consulting the dictionary, they had to agree that it was a worm. A python-sized worm, maybe, but it’s still a worm, and fair game. Yuck.

Billy filled himself with ketchup, mustard, horseradish, and a squeeze of lemon juice, then salt and pepper. To the next piece they added cinnamon and sugar, a bit of cheese, some cracker crumbs, and Worcestershire sauce.

After eating it all, Billy got up, waved his arms like a big bird, and hopped around the barn, yelling, “Gute, gute. Ver’fine, ver’fine. Gute, gute.”

The other boys looked on in shock. Billy started drooling from his mouth and jumping higher and higher, still flapping his wings…

You’ll have to read the book to see what happened to Billy, and if he ever ate all fifteen worms, and what happened to the kids in the process.

This is a classic children’s book that has been popular with kids since it was first published in 1973. Thomas Rockwell captures childhood quite well, and the things they do to try to get Billy to lose is typical of what kids get into. kids. There are many crazy ideas and surprises.

Reluctant readers will enjoy this story, because they’ll want to keep reading to find out what will happen to the next worm, and the next, and the next. And the chapters are really short and easy to read.

No, this is not a cookbook. How to eat fried wormsby Thomas Rockwell is a fun read about a crazy bet that could happen with any group of four kids.