![]() ![]() Meanwhile the art is colorful, peppy, and has a lot of zing. If you walk into this book not realizing that it’s set to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” you’ll catch on pretty quickly. It’s feeding time at the zoo and on the hour, every hour, our croc hero gets something tasty to eat. Why must it be relegated to Christmas alone? Couldn’t we just write a picture book that recasts it with a hungry crocodile instead? Enter Croc o’ Clock. Well, it seems strange to me that I haven’t seen more singable picture books take advantage of our very human love of that song. People are running in from other rooms just to sing the “FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!” part. Ben SandersĮddie Izzard has an old routine where she talks about how fantastic “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is as a song. The cat? The dog? Or could it be the mouse (who pops up periodically throughout the tale)? A book that raises more questions than it answers, and that is a-okay.Ĭroc o’ Clock by Huw Lewis Jones, ill. Still, I like that this has the extra added benefit of making you question who precisely is telling this story. In both cases your expectations are shifted, until you learn to go with the flow. What this truly reminds me of is Unfortunately by Remy Charlip. In fact, the book ends on a question, challenging readers to continue the story in their own way (I smell a wonderful writing assignment for teachers…). What’s interesting about all of this is how it challenges the young reader to try and predict where things are going next. The text on the next page reads, “Yes! And the dog was wide awake, right?” And so it goes. “No! But there was a cat, right?” The dog on the couch is now a pretty benign fellow, the cat regarding him impassively. For example, the first sentence reads, “So there was a scary dog, right?” On the page you see a cat hiding behind a couch with a massive white dog, barbed collar, mean expression. Essentially, the narration sets up a situation, then immediately changes it with a page turn. This book isn’t quite that, but it’s not not that either. Fox! Teague! Together! I like a good unreliable narrator in my picture books, but it’s a yen that is so rarely satisfied. ![]()
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