Celeste is a cockroach, and everyone knows that cockroaches are survivors, so who better to give advice on surviving an encounter with a polite predator? Everyone also knows that taking a moonlit promenade with a deadly reticulated python (named Frank) is a very bad idea. But Celeste loves very bad ideas, and she is willing to put your life on the line to prove herself right! Need to stop a python from swallowing you head-first? Wear a lamp shade as a hat! Want to speed up a three-hundred-pound snake? Try roller skates! What’s the perfect light snack for a python? A chicken! Using her superior pythonine knowledge, Celeste comes up with various strategies and solutions—many dangerous, most absurd, but all based on the biology of pythons. Meanwhile, Frank is hatching his own plans.

Rachel Poliquin has created a delightfully preposterous premise that, combined with Kathryn Durst’s hilarious illustrations, will have readers laughing out loud as they learn about python biology and hunting behavior.