In Food for Cannibals Jim Cromarty has revisited his previous best-selling book King of the Cannibals and rewritten it in a straightforward style that is especially suitable for young people. The author takes the reader through John Paton’s life, from his birth in a humble cottage in rural Scotland through to his death in Melbourne, Australia, eighty-three years later.

John Paton was a great pioneer missionary who devoted himself to sharing the gospel with the cannibals of the New Hebrides in the Pacific. His life was in constant danger but John knew that God was in control and that he would not die until that work was completed. Again and again, when situations were at their worst, we cannot but marvel at the way God steps in to protect John from certain death. The reader will be engrossed by the accounts of his adventures, hardships and courage. It is a story that is both exciting and thought provoking. John was no ‘part-time’ missionary but a man who lived and worked among the people he deeply loved and cared about. He constantly gave thanks to God for the wonderful change that had taken place in the lives of many people who had once been cannibals.

The Bible was the guide to the whole of John Paton’s life and this comes through clearly in Food for Cannibals. At the end of each short chapter are practical questions that encourage the reader to look up passages of Scripture and see how John Paton applied these Biblical truths to his own life. The author then challenges his readers to apply these spiritual truths to their own lives.


Jim Cromarty is a retired minister of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia. He also taught for twenty-seven years in a number of primary schools in Australia. He is the author of the best-selling full biography of John Paton King of the Cannibals, Pigtail and chopsticks man — the story of J. Hudson Taylor, A mighty fortress is our God — the story of Martin Luther, as well as many other books on family reading and worship.