Alligator Boy [Hardcover]

Cynthia Rylant (Author), Diane Goode (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 3 and up | Grade Level: P and up

A boy is just plain tired of being a boy. So, he becomes an alligator--and it suits him just fine! His worried mother is comforted by the vet, who reassures her that all will be well, as long as the young alligator boy continues to attend school, of course. Whether scaring the class bully with his commanding grin or singing from his impressive snout in the choir, this brand-new lizard is ready to live his life with great green gusto. 
    
With Cynthia Rylant's buoyant rhyming text and Diane Goode's irresistible illustrations, this inspired celebration of the power of a child's imagination is full of whimsical details and reptilian glee. 

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 2—Inspired by a trip to a natural history museum, a boy decides he wants to be an alligator, and his aunt obliges by sending him an alligator head and tail, which he immediately dons. His worried mother calls the vet, who assures her that "It looks well." Both parents take their son's new look in stride and send him off to school where he can at last scare off a bully. On a return visit to the museum with his class, the boy faces his stuffed idol with obvious delight. Goode's watercolor and gouache cartoon vignettes on white ground are reminiscent of the artist's other work in which she evokes a former time. Mother visits the museum wearing a hat and long dress; the teacher is in a belted suit; and the students, one in a wheelchair, wear short pants and dresses. The protagonist's alligator head reflects his mood, exhibiting gleeful laughter as the bully runs away and restful contentment as he snuggles in his mother's lap. Unfortunately, this charming story is marred by an awkward rhyme scheme: "She asked a good doctor to come and to see/this boy who could not a boy now be." Still, any youngster who has ever wanted to assume more power than childhood allows will delight in the "good green life" that alligator boy enjoys.—Marianne Saccardi, formerly at Norwalk Community College, CT
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

From the team who created When I Was Young in the Mountains (1982) comes a saga about a boy who dresses up as an alligator and shows, contrary to popular thought, that it is easy to be green. However, even an alligator boy must go to school. "The vet said he must, that it was the rule." At school, after he deals with the bully, "he found he enjoyed the student life fully." The book ends with a class visit back to the museum where he got the idea in the first place; "his days were a joy . . .What a good green life for an alligator boy." The rhymed text and simple, very appealing illustrations will make this a popular read-aloud. The illustrations show the setting to be late 1920s or 1930s, but the theme of being different is timeless. Although there is very little drama here, children will enjoy this low-key vision of the experiences wearing an alligator costume might bring. Enos, Randall
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 3 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books (June 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0152060928
• ISBN-13: 978-0152060923
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 11.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,391,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Diane Goode was born in Brooklyn, New York into a French and Italian family. She has a BA in Fine Arts from Queens College. She studied at Les Beaux Arts in Aix-en-Provence, has a High School teaching degree from NYC and taught book illustration at UCLA.

Diane Goode's list of picture 50 picture books include, 'When I Was Young In The Mountains', for which she won the Caldecott Honor. She is also the recipient of numerous awards including two Platinum Oppenheim Toy Awards, and Parents' Choice Awards.

Her most recent publications are: CINDERELLA SMITH, by Stephanie Barden, LOUISE THE BIG CHEESE series, by Elise Primavera and MY MOM IS TRYING TO RUIN MY LIFE and BUT I WANTED A BABY BROTHER, both by Kate Feiffer (A Paula wiseman Book, Simon& Schuster) 2008.

A member of the Society of Illustrators, she chaired the 2007 Original Art Show in Manhattan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Story!, November 30, 2007

By 

S. Friel (Virginia Beach, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Alligator Boy (Hardcover)

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars simple, adorable, October 15, 2011

By 

Amy Henry (Nipomo, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Alligator Boy (Hardcover)

One of my boys favorite stories, Alligator Boy is a simple story with rhyme that shows a boy who puts on an alligator costume and doesn't want to give it up. He goes to school with it, even sees a vet! Very sweet, short enough to make it easy on a tired mom, with adorable illustrations.

4.0 out of 5 stars Transmogrification: THe SImple Tale of a Boy WHo "Becomes" an Alligator, June 10, 2009

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Alligator Boy (Hardcover)

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.