A young python does not want to grow slow and boring like the older snakes he sees in the tropical jungle where he lives.

Eleven-year-old Koi is eager to kill a python as part of the rite of passage to manhood among his Otehambra people, but in the meantime he must face a bully who is picking on an old hunter in the village marketplace.

Python stirs and slithers out from her shelter, smelling the air with her forked tongue. It's time to molt her dull scales and reveal the glistening snake underneath. Gliding along a tree, she stops and watches very, very closely as a bird drops onto a branch -- and escapes the razor-sharp teeth just in time. But Python is hungry, so she slides on to stalk new prey. Combining informative facts, expressive illustrations, and a lyrical, mesmerizing...