Overlong Crocodiles: Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile by Bernard Waber

MFAC-2.png

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile by Bernard Waber. Houghton Mifflin, 1965.

This book is fairly obviously the personification of a child in Crocodile form. The mean neighbor doesn’t like Lyle the Crocodile and wants him in a zoo but through events, Lyle ends up rescuing him and his cat from a fire, thus solving the problem. It’s quaint and the personification allows the author to stick Lyle in a zoo for a time (can’t have a child getting sent off to a cage) while keeping the young reader engaged in Lyle’s antics which are so similar to a child’s own.

I found it a bit too long to read aloud comfortably. But I tend to, uh, skip parts when I read aloud.

Rebecca Grabill

Rebecca has been writing since childhood, her first book about a kitten published between homemade cardboard covers in second grade. Although she studied religion and philosophy in university, she continued writing, earning an MFA from Hamline University and publishing multiple picture books (no longer with homemade covers) and a collection of poetry with a variety of New York and independent publishers. She has also published a wide array of fiction, essays, and poetry in magazines and journals and photographs for Getty Images. She balances writing with homeschooling the younger of her six children, launching her young adults, church activities, and overseeing a small flock of chickens in rural West Michigan.

www.rebeccagrabill.com
Previous
Previous

Friends Forever: George and Martha

Next
Next

Too Tall for Truth: Tall Tales - John Henry by Julius Lester