Customer Reviews

Hey, Al

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"Paradise lost is sometimes heaven found" is the closing line in Hey, Al, a wonderful book that has a timeless moral for both kids and adults. Al is a janitor who is not happy with how is life is going. He lives in a room with his dog, Eddie, who is also not happy with his situation. One day a bird appears at the window promising to bring them to a better place, "no worries, no cares". Of course, something that sounds that good probably isn't.

This book is definitely an entertaining story. The pictures are colorful and very detailed. Kids will love looking at them and pointing out all the different birds and laugh at the silly transformation that Al and Eddie go through. I think they will also get the story, that what you have is usually better than what you lust for. Everyone, at some point in their life, dreams about something better. This book is a great reality check for us, giving a serious message in a kid's book.

Hey, Al, by Arthur Yorinks and Richard Egielski, is a story about Al and Eddie, the dog, going to paradise.
Al, a nice, quiet, janitor, lived in a small but very neat apartment on the West Side of New York City with his faithful dog, Eddie. They were always struggling. Eddie hoped for a house with a backyard.
All that changed one morning when Al was startled by a huge bird said, "tommorow I will bring you to paradise." The bird offers Al and Eddie a change. The next morning, both are ready and waiting in the bathroom.the bird carries them to the paradise.
The theme of this story is that "your own home is the best place to be." Al and Eddie were much happier in their own house than in the paradise. Everyone will like this book, because it has beautiful pictures and ideas.

This book won the Caldecott Medal as the best illustrated children's book of 1987. The wistful, bright water colors will entrance you and your child as you follow this excursion into fantasy.

Al, who is a janitor, lives in a one room, one bathroom apartment on the West Side of New York City. His only companion is his loyal dog, Eddie. Not only is the place small, it is not very neat and tidy. Eddie yearns vocally for a house with a back yard.

All this changes one morning when Al is startled by a huge rainbow-beaked toucan-like bird poking his head into the bathroom while Al prepares for work. The bird offers Al and Eddie a change. The next morning, both are ready and waiting in the bathroom.

The bird carries them to a misty island high in the sky filled with beautiful pools, waterfalls, vegetation, birds, and butterflies. "Unbelievable" is their reaction. "They never had it so good." They lazed in pools of water, and ate wonderful ripe fruit. What a change from a small apartment!

But one morning, Al and Eddie started to turn into birds. Al said, "I don't want to be a bird. I'd rather mop floors!"

They head back, flapping their wings. Eddie tires and falls into the sea. Al barely gets to the apartment, where he is heartbroken over Eddie's loss. But Al has regained his human form in the process.

Then, Eddie returns, having swum from where he dropped into the ocean back to the shore.

Al realizes that "Paradise lost is sometimes Heaven found."

The last scene shows Al starting to paint the apartment a bright yellow as Eddie looks on.

The story follows the general theme of many children's stories where the reality of experiencing something more that has been yearned for makes the characters realize the greater value of what they already have had. You will find this theme in stories as diverse as Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew.

Naturally, this story is a set-up to help you and your child discuss and count your blessings, including each other. You can also relate the story back to experiences about being glad to return home from a trip or a vacation, even though everyone had a wonderful time.

Put what you have in perspective of the lesser alternatives, and strive to make the best of what you do have!

I was eight years old when this book came out in 1986. Before I even knew that this book existed I used to play a great game with my fellow kidlets. Everyone got onto the bed and someone below the bed was a huge alligator named Al. The goal was to stick your head over the side of the bed and yell, "Hey, Al!", and avoid getting grabbed. When I saw the book, "Hey, Al", I was disappointed to find that there weren't any alligators involved. The similarities to my favorite game were limited, but there was one thing that was the same. That heart stopping feeling you got when you stuck your head over the side, not knowing what you'd find or when you'd get grabbed... that's the feeling you get after reading, "Hey, Al".

Al's just your normal janitor living with his dog in a one room apartment in New York. As the book says, he's, "a nice man, a quiet man, a janitor". Eddie, Al's dog and partner, is fed up with their life at the moment but there isn't much the two can do about it. One day, while Al's shaving in the bathroom, a huge blue bird sticks its head in the window. The bird promises that if Al merely comes with him he'll find a place without any worries and cares. The next day, Al and Eddie wait patiently in the bathroom and the bird arrives to fly them up up up to an island in the sky. Once there the two eat and drink and swim and sunbathe all day. It's a little paradise. But this world starts to go terribly terribly wrong when Al wakes up one day to find that both he and Eddie are turning into birds. Suddenly the honeymoon is over and the two friends must fly for their lives back to their little apartment in New York to return to normal. In the end, the two friends are a little wiser and a little happier with their lot.

Author Arthur Yorinks and illustrator Richard Egielski were great fans of the weird dream-like picture book. I don't know if you're at all familiar with their similarly peculiar and far more odd "Louis the Fish", but "Hey, Al" is written (and drawn) in very much the same vein. I was slightly disturbed by "Hey, Al" when I read it as a kid and that feeling has persisted in the eighteen years since I last looked at it. I think illustrator Egielski gives a nod to the otherworldly island paradise Al and Eddie end up in when he draws into his scene of birds welcoming the visitors a dodo with human hands and a walking stick (much as you would find in the original Tenniel drawing of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"). Somehow the combination of bright colors and an ever so slightly off narrative gives the book that otherworldly quality that made it so unique when it was first published. The range of birds available on the island (everything from ostriches and pink flamingos to penguins and puffins) help as well.

Kids will love speculating whether or not the other birds on the sunny isle were once human too. What is clear in the end, however, is the small still moral that staying true to one's self is better than all the riches in the world. The final line in the book is the undeniable statement, "Paradise lost is sometimes Heaven found". A little light philosophy for a toddler's growing mind.

Rare it is that two separate indiviuals can meld words and pictures in such a way as this. Yorinks' spareness of words makes the tale fly as beautifully as the birds he writes about and Egielski draws the eye right to the heart of his illustrations by not overfilling the page. Beauty in words, beauty in pictures, a beautiful book

Oh why, oh why, am I always the contrarian concerning picture books for children? Those reviewers before me praised the value of home and happiness where one is, not in wishful thinking. I see "Hey, Al" as a vivid story of the imagination and how its use can bring about change and happiness.

Keeping things as they are-- home dull, bland home seriously lacking is not a requirement for happiness. Keeping the status quo is static, dull, prone to death. Wishing for these things can result in disaster. Al and his good dog Eddie live in an efficiency apartment in New York in the West Side. They resent their lives in this awful, cramped place and wish for a house.

Their wish is granted when a huge, colorful bird pokes his head through the bathroom window and tells Al he has paradise. (I'm immediately thinking death! And sure enough, I later prove to be right.) The next day the bird flies Al and Eddie to paradise which is up there. It is heavenly (oh did I say that?) until both discovered they were changing into birds. Dead to themselves and awake to birdhood--not for either of them!

One illustration shows Al flying toward the upper left margin and Eddie crashing into the sea on the lower right--a definite imitation of Daedalus and Icarus whose wings melted when they tried to fly too high (or their reach exceeded their grasp, or they tried to exceed what humans are not capable of). There's a definite play on mythic figures here.

So Al returns to his dull apartment and Eddie soon joins him. However, they have been transformed because of this adventure, because they dared to go outside the box. The last frame shows Al painting the walls of their boring apartment a bright yellow. Change is now with them. It's amazing what a little paint can do.

I'm going to resist teacherly didacticism and leave my comments alone. The themes are obvious. "Hey, Al" is most certainly deserving of the Caldecott Gold Medal in 1987. Guess what color the last set of end pages is? You're right--I don't need to tell you!

I seriously question the moral of this story, which seems to be that people should be content with their station in life, and not aspire to anything better. Really? It's never specifically mentioned what is so terrible about being a bird. Freedom and abundance on a tropical isle is supposed to be a bad thing in the story, and Al should rather find contentment by struggling to make ends meet as a low paid and under-appreciated janitor in the inner city. As far as children's books go, I would rather encourage my children to dream and strive, not settle for discontentment and a low paying job. We won't be re-reading this one.

I can see why this book won the Caldecott medal for illustrations -- the birds in the illustrations are completely fantastic.

In this "be careful what you wish for" book, Al and his dog grumble about their workady life, and then are swept away to paradise. A few clues on the pages (a human hand beneath a dodo's wong; concerned looks on the birds' faces as Al's stay in paradise lengthens) indicate something amiss... and then they return home to a newfound appreciation of the mundane world.

There isn't much story here, but the illustrations are wonderful to look at.

There is a good lesson for young and old alike to be found in this story, "the grass is always greener on the other side". I really enjoyed this book I thought the author was very in tune to the audience in which he was writing to. This was ilistrated in the vivid color and the cheractors he chose as well to tell his story. When Al's dog is tired of their drab life he convinces Al to make a change, and for a while it seemed to be paradise, accept the longer they stayed there the more they found themselves changeing into something they didn't want to be.

A janitor named Al and his faithful friend, a dog named Eddie live in New York in a cramped, rather dingy apartment. They are pretty sick of it and Eddie gripes about it to Al. One day they fall into a bit of magic and escape the world that they are tired of and end up on a flying island in the air that is populated by all kinds of fantastic tropical birds. They feel like they are in paradise but, of course, they find out that paradise isn't all it's cracked up to be.
What I love about this book is the wonderful illustrations, full of bright colors and gentle humour, and the dialog that sounds just the way a janitor from the West Side of New York City might. I love the way Al and Eddie learn to make their lives better by the end of the story. What I don't particularly like is that the "moral" seems to say that you really shouldn't dream of paradise on earth because it's not okay to kick back and luxuriate and live in leisure because that's just not naural for human beings. It's just too preachy and simplistic. Why can't magic take you to paradise and it all turns out GREAT? Why do we have to feel like if we're not struggling along and doing what we've always done, then it's going to come back and haunt us eventually? I did like the way the book emphasized how precious friendship is and how lost we are without it.
This is a book for little ones and they will love the pictures and characters. They will love, as I do, the friendship between Al and Eddie. It got the 1987 Caldecott medal for Illustrations for a reason! I think it's a good book but I was bummed that Al and Eddie couldn't have their cake and eat it, too. I mean if a giant tucan can hoist you aloft to a fantasy island, why can't the fantasy be perfect?!