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After the Kill
A hungry lioness attacks a grazing zebra on the plains of East Africa. She bites it in the throat. The zebra is dead. After the kill, the lioness and her pride rip the carcass open and eat. Vultures swoop in and fight over scraps of meat, and cunning jackals compete with bone-crushing hyenas for a piece of the feast. Life on the plain is a constant, dramatic struggle for survival between predator, prey, and scavenger.
32 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
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21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
July 18, 2012
I am very impressed with this book. It is perfect for teaching about predators and prey, food chains, habitats, and more. It is clearly written and unsentimental about a lioness killing a zebra and what happens after. I will definitely read this to my students.
May 31, 2019
Wow! This is so well written and illustrated that it's educational message is smooth, although perhaps difficult for some children to handle. Life for wild animals in East Africa seems harsh and cruel, but this story shows how they survive, how Nature is connected and amazing. A zebra is hunted and killed by a lioness, and then the reader is taken through the process of feeding time for a variety of different scavengers. Very interesting when all put together this way.
September 26, 2021
This book is meant for higher elementary grades. Though this book is fiction, it is based on a non-fiction story of how a zebra is killed and then eaten by several animals. The illustrations are unique and beautiful, but the words used are more complicated. The use of informational paragraphs beside the pictures will help the reader to learn facts about each animal. The story overall, is not the greatest, but the facts therein is helpful.
March 27, 2018
This is an excellent natural history lesson, but not for very young or squeamish children.
October 12, 2021
Excellent book about lions!!!
November 5, 2011
25 April 2011 AFTER THE KILL by Darrin Lunde and Catherine Stock, ill., Charlesbridge, July 2011, 32p., ISBN: 978-1-57091-743-1
"It is early in the morning, and a hungry lioness is on the prowl. She sees a herd of zebras grazing in the distance. Mmmm -- zebra! Her mouth begins to water."
AFTER THE KILL is a picture book that stopped me in my tracks. Year after year, there are children's books set on the East Africa plain that look so posed, so static. This is the antithesis of those books. Page after page, this is a picture book that exudes vibrancy.
"The lioness crouches in the grass and creeps forward.
"One of the zebras seems weaker than the others, and she focuses on it. The zebra twitches its ears, but does not see her. The lioness creeps closer...closer...and then --"
AFTER THE KILL portrays the tension between co-existing species -- predators, scavengers, and prey -- as the zebra killed by the lioness becomes, in turn, a meal for white-backed vultures, spotted hyenas, golden jackals, male lions, small lion cubs, lappet-faced vultures, and meat-eating beetles.
Reading and re-reading this book that pulsates with life and power and timelessness, I wanted to know: How did this book come to feel so different from anything I've seen before? I decided to learn more about the author and the illustrator.
From a web page of questions and answers about the author, I found out that Darrin Lunde is a mammalogist who first went out seeking knowledge about taxidermy and organizing collection data when he was a middle school student on Staten Island. Aided by his hard work in college, he grew up to successfully land his childhood dream job: working as an explorer for the American Museum of Natural History which, for both him and me, was a magical place to visit as a child. Of working there, he wrote:
"Being part of the museum's unbroken chain of explorers is what means the most to me. The museum explorers before me who went out, suffered hardships, took risks, and discovered new things are my ultimate heroes. It's about more than adding nuggets of information to our vast storehouse of knowledge. It's about the struggle to reach unfamiliar territory and the hard work that goes into discovering new things. It's about continuing the tradition of exploration, and keeping the spirit of exploration alive."
Now he is working at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
I discovered that illustrator Catherine Stock grew up in Stockholm, Paris, South Africa, New Orleans, and San Francisco. In colleges over three continents she studied art, education, communications, and design. Of her younger years and a failed career she writes:
"So then I decided to get my teaching certificate in London. What a shock! I couldn't control the tough young kids in London's East End at all, and later, the older students at the Loughton College of Further Education were so bored and unmotivated, only interested in snoggling with each other at the back of the class. Teaching suddenly became a matter of either discipline or entertainment. It was so different from Africa, where kids sometimes walk for hours every day to get to school."
On her website, you can find photos of Catherine hanging out with lionesses. Her illustrations for AFTER THE KILL are done in pencil, watercolor, and gouache.
"White-backed vultures are such clumsy fliers that they sometimes crash-land near a kill with a forward somersault. They have hooked tongues that keep other vultures from snatching slippery meat out of their mouths."
There are two texts in AFTER THE KILL. There is the narrative, as the various creatures either chase one another away or sneak in for a piece of the kill. And there is the smaller-sized additional information about the different species who make up the story -- a story that does not even begin to stand still until the final page, when we are left with the white, bleached skeleton of the zebra on the Serengeti Plain.
This is a significant work that is sure to inspire young artists, animal lovers, and ecologists.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
Moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_...
Moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EcolIt/
http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/facult...
"It is early in the morning, and a hungry lioness is on the prowl. She sees a herd of zebras grazing in the distance. Mmmm -- zebra! Her mouth begins to water."
AFTER THE KILL is a picture book that stopped me in my tracks. Year after year, there are children's books set on the East Africa plain that look so posed, so static. This is the antithesis of those books. Page after page, this is a picture book that exudes vibrancy.
"The lioness crouches in the grass and creeps forward.
"One of the zebras seems weaker than the others, and she focuses on it. The zebra twitches its ears, but does not see her. The lioness creeps closer...closer...and then --"
AFTER THE KILL portrays the tension between co-existing species -- predators, scavengers, and prey -- as the zebra killed by the lioness becomes, in turn, a meal for white-backed vultures, spotted hyenas, golden jackals, male lions, small lion cubs, lappet-faced vultures, and meat-eating beetles.
Reading and re-reading this book that pulsates with life and power and timelessness, I wanted to know: How did this book come to feel so different from anything I've seen before? I decided to learn more about the author and the illustrator.
From a web page of questions and answers about the author, I found out that Darrin Lunde is a mammalogist who first went out seeking knowledge about taxidermy and organizing collection data when he was a middle school student on Staten Island. Aided by his hard work in college, he grew up to successfully land his childhood dream job: working as an explorer for the American Museum of Natural History which, for both him and me, was a magical place to visit as a child. Of working there, he wrote:
"Being part of the museum's unbroken chain of explorers is what means the most to me. The museum explorers before me who went out, suffered hardships, took risks, and discovered new things are my ultimate heroes. It's about more than adding nuggets of information to our vast storehouse of knowledge. It's about the struggle to reach unfamiliar territory and the hard work that goes into discovering new things. It's about continuing the tradition of exploration, and keeping the spirit of exploration alive."
Now he is working at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
I discovered that illustrator Catherine Stock grew up in Stockholm, Paris, South Africa, New Orleans, and San Francisco. In colleges over three continents she studied art, education, communications, and design. Of her younger years and a failed career she writes:
"So then I decided to get my teaching certificate in London. What a shock! I couldn't control the tough young kids in London's East End at all, and later, the older students at the Loughton College of Further Education were so bored and unmotivated, only interested in snoggling with each other at the back of the class. Teaching suddenly became a matter of either discipline or entertainment. It was so different from Africa, where kids sometimes walk for hours every day to get to school."
On her website, you can find photos of Catherine hanging out with lionesses. Her illustrations for AFTER THE KILL are done in pencil, watercolor, and gouache.
"White-backed vultures are such clumsy fliers that they sometimes crash-land near a kill with a forward somersault. They have hooked tongues that keep other vultures from snatching slippery meat out of their mouths."
There are two texts in AFTER THE KILL. There is the narrative, as the various creatures either chase one another away or sneak in for a piece of the kill. And there is the smaller-sized additional information about the different species who make up the story -- a story that does not even begin to stand still until the final page, when we are left with the white, bleached skeleton of the zebra on the Serengeti Plain.
This is a significant work that is sure to inspire young artists, animal lovers, and ecologists.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
Moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_...
Moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EcolIt/
http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/facult...
October 14, 2011
Explore what happens after the lioness kills a zebra on the Serengeti Plain. While the hunt and the kill are part of the story, they are only the beginning. After the zebra is killed, the lion pride comes to eat and then other species start to gather. There are the vultures who share with the lions. Then the hyena clan that is able to drive the lions away and claim their share. Jackals use trickery to grab some food for themselves. The lions reclaim the carcass and continue to eat until they are sated. Other vultures arrive. The small scraps of flesh that remain are eaten by meat-eating beetles until the bones are white in the African sun.
Lunde, a mammalogist at the Smithsonian Institute, creates a compelling story here. There is no shying away from predator and prey, just a frank description of the food chain. Nicely, Lunde injects his narrative with plenty of detail, noises, and an obvious love of his subject. He paints a verbal picture of what is happening, helping young readers better understand what is actually happening. The pieces of the book in the smaller font have additional scientific information that readers will find fascinating.
Stock’s illustrations have a bright, hot quality to them thanks to the yellow tones throughout. The heat of Africa is built into every page. She also embraces the kill, the scavenging, and the story, creating a book filled with action-filled images.
An unflinching look at the battle for food on the Serengeti Plain, this book will be riveting for young readers. Appropriate for ages 5-8, though this is a book that some children may find upsetting, so it is important to be aware of the sensitivity of the child you are sharing it with.
Lunde, a mammalogist at the Smithsonian Institute, creates a compelling story here. There is no shying away from predator and prey, just a frank description of the food chain. Nicely, Lunde injects his narrative with plenty of detail, noises, and an obvious love of his subject. He paints a verbal picture of what is happening, helping young readers better understand what is actually happening. The pieces of the book in the smaller font have additional scientific information that readers will find fascinating.
Stock’s illustrations have a bright, hot quality to them thanks to the yellow tones throughout. The heat of Africa is built into every page. She also embraces the kill, the scavenging, and the story, creating a book filled with action-filled images.
An unflinching look at the battle for food on the Serengeti Plain, this book will be riveting for young readers. Appropriate for ages 5-8, though this is a book that some children may find upsetting, so it is important to be aware of the sensitivity of the child you are sharing it with.
September 26, 2012
On the savanna a lioness approaches a herd of zebras. She sees one zebra is weaker than the others, stalks it, then makes her kill. She feasts on the muscles while other lionesses from her pride approach to share the meal. Soon other animals come for their dinner as well, each species taking its turn; vultures, hyenas, jackals all feast before the male lion appears and finishes the last of the zebra, leaving nothing but white bones to lie in the African sun until they turn to dust.
Illustrations show the action without being graphic. It's kind of fascinating to note the feasting hierarchy--who gets to eat first, then next, and on until there's nothing left. I was surprised that the bones are left alone, that no wild dogs eat them. Used in 5th grade classrooms studying predator-prey relationships, I think this book would really keep kids' attention.
Illustrations show the action without being graphic. It's kind of fascinating to note the feasting hierarchy--who gets to eat first, then next, and on until there's nothing left. I was surprised that the bones are left alone, that no wild dogs eat them. Used in 5th grade classrooms studying predator-prey relationships, I think this book would really keep kids' attention.
August 10, 2011
Definitely not a book for the squeamish child or adult. I think about The Lion King and the song Circle of Life. While that is a happy song this may not be the happiest topic but it is a fact of life. Lion kill zebras for food and other animals eventually share this food.
While I am not a fan of watching the animal planet channel show about predators killing other animals I respect that they have to to live and this book is still an educational book for children.
The art is pretty graphic and I would not recommend it for smaller children. Maybe for about the age of 7 and up depending on the child. You would need a child mature enough to understand and respect the nature of animals.
While I am not a fan of watching the animal planet channel show about predators killing other animals I respect that they have to to live and this book is still an educational book for children.
The art is pretty graphic and I would not recommend it for smaller children. Maybe for about the age of 7 and up depending on the child. You would need a child mature enough to understand and respect the nature of animals.
October 25, 2012
Wow! Way more than I was expecting... Seems to be a realistic portrait of predators, prey, and scavengers on the Serengeti Plains of East Africa. (A lioness chases down and kills her zebra prey as she bites it in the throat.) All the different animals who feast on this kill are explored, right down to the meat eating beetles that finish off the skeleton (and are also used natural history museums for cleaning skeletons). Direct language might make some squeamish, but for older students it would be a good portrayal to share.
February 18, 2014
Ages 6-9, Charlesbridge Publishing
A mammalogist and an artist who has lived in South Africa collaborate to present a realistic portrayal of predator and prey in East Africa. Their intended audience is not patronized; young children may well respect that surprising decision. Adults who are accustomed to offering children a sanitized view of nature may find the illustrations and vocabulary shocking, while the biologist/author simply attempts to "open someone's eyes to the existence of a wider world." Perhaps children might become more avid readers in light of such honesty.
A mammalogist and an artist who has lived in South Africa collaborate to present a realistic portrayal of predator and prey in East Africa. Their intended audience is not patronized; young children may well respect that surprising decision. Adults who are accustomed to offering children a sanitized view of nature may find the illustrations and vocabulary shocking, while the biologist/author simply attempts to "open someone's eyes to the existence of a wider world." Perhaps children might become more avid readers in light of such honesty.
July 13, 2011
Graphic and disturbingly illustrated account of a lioness killing a zebra and devouring it, followed by vultures, hyenas, and jackals, who all benefit from the kill, all the way to the tiny meat-eating beetles who pick the zebra bones clean. This is an interesting book in that it looks at a part of the “circle of life” seldom covered in children’s picture books, but I found the tone to be off-putting. I really don’t think even a hungry lioness is thinking “Mmmm---zebra!” for example.
September 3, 2012
What an awesome title! I won't even have to try to convince kids to read this one!
What happens to a zebra after it's killed by a lioness? Not only does it feed a pride of lions, it becomes a food source for vultures, hyenas, jackals, and meat-eating beetles. Catherine Stock's watercolors are the perfect format for this book -- the pictures are accurate without being graphic.
Recommended for students learning about ecology and food webs in grades 2 - 4.
What happens to a zebra after it's killed by a lioness? Not only does it feed a pride of lions, it becomes a food source for vultures, hyenas, jackals, and meat-eating beetles. Catherine Stock's watercolors are the perfect format for this book -- the pictures are accurate without being graphic.
Recommended for students learning about ecology and food webs in grades 2 - 4.
October 28, 2013
After the kill by Darrion lunde. A hungry lioness attacks a grazing zebra on the plains of East Africa. She bites it in the throat. The zebra is dead. After the kill, the lioness and her pride rip the carcass open and eat. Vultures swoop in and fight over scraps of meat, and cunning jackals compete with bone-crushing hyenas for a piece of the feast.
Life on the plain is a constant, dramatic struggle for surviaval between predator, prey, and scavenger.
Life on the plain is a constant, dramatic struggle for surviaval between predator, prey, and scavenger.
February 4, 2016
This book about predators and the food chain is simple and accessible for children. The illustrations are not gory or especially frightening (the most graphic might be the zebra open-mouthed in terror as the lionness pounces). The text is more descriptive and doesn't mince words ("The vultures reach deep inside the dead zebra with their long necks and tear off bits of meat and intestine.") Brief sidebars elaborate on the main text. Straightforward and compelling prose about the food chain.
May 20, 2012
I love watching nature shows until one animal chases and drags down another. Then I have to turn the channel! I like thinking that all the animals live in harmony! I know, naive. This book is a very true account of life in nature. I don't know that some kids could stomach it. Great book for food web teachings.
October 13, 2013
This book is a good and informative way to teach kids why animals have to die. Depending on the age of the child, they may not understand the concept of death, and this is good why to show that through the different types of food chains. The pictures are very good and not graphic despite the nature. I really think students will enjoy the book and learn something too!
January 23, 2014
NAAAAAAZEEWHENNYAAAA! It's the circle of life my friends. It tells the gritty truth of life on the savannah. Two narratives going on here: one detailing what is going on in the pictures and the other providing factual tidbits.
This should be for an older reader. Not one afraid of Mr. Zebra getting consumed over the course of 32 pages.
This should be for an older reader. Not one afraid of Mr. Zebra getting consumed over the course of 32 pages.
June 30, 2011
Not since April Pulley Sayre and "Vulture View," has an author laid bare the three R's of nature--- reduce, reuse and recyle. A vaulable story of realism that will never change and that children deserve to know and embrace instead of shirking from the truth.
February 16, 2013
I liked this book. Great non-fiction description of the food chain...but a bit graphic. The illustrations are watercolor, but quite detailed. I think this book would be great for those need-to-know kids, but keep it away from the more sensitive kids.
October 28, 2013
A descriptive story about a lion's kill. Very detailed about how the lion kills its prey as well as the role of the other animals in the food chain. Illustrations are detailed as well, showing the zebra being pulled apart.
Make sure to read before introducing it to your class.
Make sure to read before introducing it to your class.
July 25, 2016
An unsensationalized yet sensational account of a zebra’s fate after a lion attack. Understatement of violence through color and line provides a viscerally natural, calmingly intriguing reading experience as the zebra’s corpse experiences African wildlife After the Kill.
May 13, 2011
Excellent, realistic portrait of predators, prey, and scavengers on the plains of East Africa.
June 13, 2011
Not for the faint of heart (or zebra lovers) - but it is exciting and gruesome and very realistic. This book will make some kids very happy.
August 18, 2011
I have yet to read this to my boys...although it would support my arguements in favor of meat-eating.
September 15, 2011
Definitely a book for older kids. It was a great picture book and very factual. I may have found certain things grotesque but it was meant to be an informative book. I appreciate the honesty! :)
April 28, 2012
Well-written and truly explains the food chain.
October 12, 2012
Realistic, yet not gory, illustrations depict a food chain on the Serengeti Plain. Very read aloud friendly.
March 12, 2013
K-3: Food Chains, Characteristics of Living Things/Basic Needs
5- Food Chains
5- Food Chains
October 22, 2013
Doesn't hold back a single bit. This books brings the full brutality of mother nature to the print, adding illustrations that are gruesomely accurate. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews