Alligator Boy

I read this to my Story Hour kids when we’re learning “same/different, alligators/crocodiles”. It’s a cute little story that flows along with humorous happenings. The kids love it!

My two year old absolutely fell in love with this book and the illustrations were unique enough to keep me interested as well!

When a young boy tires (for some unexplained reason) of being a young boy, his dfar-off aunt sends him the head and "very long tail" of an alligator costume. It should be explained that the story apparently takes place in a simpler era than ours today--and that's not just because of the old-fashioned clothes and two=piece telephone. This is a time when a costume has the fantasy-power to change one's identity, something less likely in today's whiz-bang supermarket of video games and expensive latex costumes. Cunthia Rylant (as well as illustrator Diane Goode)uses this slower paced, more innocent time to her advantage. When our hero tells his dad his new reptilian identity, the latter is sitting calmly, reading a newspaper (of all things!), with time enough to reassure that he still likes his new alligator/son, "no longer a boy." Mom is a little nore distraught: "She asked a good doctor to come and to see/this boy who could not a boy now be." (Yeah, I must agree with E.R. Bird--that isn't a very good line.) A vet--make that a vet who makes house calls(!!)-- is summoned to the house. Nonplussed, he proclaims the alligator well, and, in the take-two-aspirin-and call-me-in-the-morning school of medicine, merely advises: "Just feed it each day and teach it to spell." The alligator-boy succeeds in school: scaring a bully, singing well with that long snout of his, scaring the dog cather (these are all on successive two-page vignettes), and, in one somewhat strange interlude, smiling at a (stuffed) alligator at a Natural History museum. I like that Rylant didn't feel she had to return the boy to his human look; I can just imagine some sentimental glop about his family or friends wanting the real boy back. Nope, this extra-evolutionary adaptation works out just fine. Diane Goode's line drawings with watercolor and gouache are evocative of an earlier, unspecified time. There's lots of white space surrounding each picture; this helps focus attention and enhances the simplicty of the story and of the setting. While not as subversively funny as say, a Janes Stevenson book, this is both more linear and more gentle. For that reason, I recommend it for toddlers and very early elementary school-age kids, who have not yet developed a taste for satire, but are just beginning to appreciate a little absurd fun.

I highly recommend this book. I read it to my 4-year-old last night for the first time, and he loves the story. He asked to read it again first thing the next morning. Beautifully illustrated too.

I imagine that it must be the nicest thing in the world to have a collaborator with whom you've worked for twenty odd years or so. How comforting that must be. The pairing of author Cynthia Rylant and illustrator Diane Goode began long long ago when they first worked together to create When I Was Young in the Mountains. Badda bing, it wins a Caldecott Honor and the rest is history. I wasn't aware that the two were still doing any shared projects, and then this lovely little book arrived on my desk. "Alligator Boy" is a small simple picture book that goes against expectations beautifully. If you happen to be in desperate need of a book that will delight your small children, boys and girls alike, but that falls on the understated side of the equation, I cannot recommend this story enough. Charming, charming, charming. After taking a trip to a museum and seeing a life-sized stuffed alligator in all its reptilian glory, a young boy decides that becoming an alligator is his life's goal. His aunt, who hears this wish over the phone, is happy to help the kid live his dream and sends him an easily worn alligator head and tail. Though his father is fine with the change, his mother worries about his health and a vet (the doctor wouldn't come) is quickly dispatched. But as it turns out, there's nothing wrong with the little alligator, so it's off to school he goes. And wouldn't you know it but it's the best thing that's ever happened to him. Now he can do everything the other kids can, but he's also adept at scaring away the school bully and rescuing dogs from dogcatchers. The last image in the book is of the little alligator, tuckered out at the end of a long day, sitting sleepily and happily on his loving mother's lap. Now when I read this story I full expected the boy to tire of his gatorial garb at some point in the proceedings so as to learn a rote lesson. Perhaps he'd find that people didn't trust him as much or that he scared kittens. Then he'd go back to being a boy and we'd get some twist ending where he starts wearing a panda outfit on the last page. This is the standard procedure that a whole heckuva lot of picture books follow, and it's deathly deadly dull. How much more interesting then to find that the boy wants to be an alligator, becomes one, and is then accepted by friends and family alike. The last image in this book is of the boy snuggled contentedly on his mother's lap, seemingly without a care in the world. Now, I don't like to read too much into a book, but this is a picture book that's going to speak to a lot of people on a lot of different levels. For anyone who has ever felt that they were born in the wrong body and want to change their appearance drastically, this is the perfect gift of a book. This title also struck me as a subtle (and better illustrated) follow-up to Charlotte Zolotow's, William's Doll. Basically, it's about accepting someone for being what they want to be. Yet unlike those didactic children's stories out there

It's not often I review a book for the world's littlest listeners, but Ehlert's "Wag a Tail" took hold of my imagination and wouldn't let go. As fitting for a 1-to 3-year-old audience, "Wag a Tail" doesn't suffer from too much plot. In fact, nothing much actually happens. Dogs go to the market. They proclaim "We are cool." They break some rules. They "never drool." At the end of the "story," they frolic in a dog park, outdoing one another with silly dog tricks. So what's so special about "Wag a Tail," then? The illustrations. They are vibrant, stunning, and child-friendly. Ehlert uses fuzzy felt-like collage to create her dogs and their passive, non-speaking people. She chose deep, jewel-like colors on a background of green; color choices unique in the preschool market. When I read this aloud to a six-year-old, he kept touching the pages, saying "this book looks like it should be lumpy." It sure does. Ehlert's dogs, though created from pieces of felt and bits of button, are lifelike and recognizable. (All sixteen dogs are afforded a short bio on the inside back cover. My favorite is Lucky, the Scottish Terrier.) The dogs are mischievous , brazen, and ready for fun. Any toddler would approve. "Wag a Tail" is the type of book you'll catch your toddler browsing through (maybe upside down?) on her own in a corner. Don't miss it. "Bow wow wow."