| Crocodiles Say
by Robert Heidbreder illustrated by Rae Maté
You create a world. I�ll come visit. This is the tacit but essential bargain struck
between reader and writer. In picture books this agreement is a
group negotiation as reader and writer are joined by illustrator
and the person who reads the story aloud. For a fiction to work,
and this is especially true in books for young children, there has
to be a base of trust. The creators and performer say, �This is
the way the world works and how it looks and sounds.� Within that
big picture, however, all the parties involved can indulge in allegiances,
collusions, tricks, and jokes. Everybody gets to play.
In Crocodiles Say, the voice of the text, and by extension the voice of the adult reader, is the voice by which we teach children table manners, tidiness, and tooth-flossing. �Crocodiles breakfast on crocodile food where crocodile manners are never rude. They chew and swallow, their mouths closed tight. Crocodiles say ... Always be polite.� Until the ellipses, the text and pictures agree as Rae Mat�s trio of benign smiling crocs in bibs approaches a nutritious breakfast. However, after the page turn, it is another story as our heroes gobble and grab, stuff and spill.
Anarchy follows order, disobedience follows compliance, crocodile nature follows human civilization as we follow the crocs through the day of dressing, tooth-brushing, lessons, physical fitness, and bedtime. Writer and adult line up against illustrator and child in a good-natured, tongue-in-cheek riff on rules and discipline. Reminiscent in tone of the 1958 classic What Do You Say, Dear? by Sesyle Joslin and Maurice Sendak, this happy double message gives child readers plenty of freedom to create their own alliances.
Ben�s Big Dig is an innovative picture book that takes the traditional creator/reader relationship and gives it a fascinating shake-up. The story is by Daniel Wakeman but there are no words. Illustrator Dirk van Stralen moves in and out of a comic book format to pull the narrative along. Ben�s world is mysterious and deeply atmospheric, full of questions and ambiguities. It is also very childlike. Putting the illustrator on the centre stage and the �writer� backstage leaves the actual storymaking to the reader. Unlike the technologies that involve hyperactive clicking and bopping and choosing from a finite number of outcomes, this is truly interactive, using the reader�s own experience to make meaning. Here�s the story that I read, and it likely reveals as much about me as about the intentions of the creator team.
It is the 1950s (yes, my own childhood). Ben is taken, by his mother, to visit his grandmother out in the country. Ben doesn�t know much about his grandmother but the first thing he finds out is that she makes pies. Ben�s mother stays long enough to have a piece of pie and then leaves. Ben feels bereft, lonely, and abandoned. He has a hollow place inside that pie cannot fill. When he takes his suitcase up to his room he discovers that it was his father�s room, full of relics of his father�s boyhood. Ben can�t sleep. His mind is full of thoughts about his father, who was a miner and died in a mine accident. Ben creeps downstairs. He provisions himself with pie, a sandwich, a shovel, and a pit helmet. He is going to dig a hole to the other side of the world. Maybe his father will be there. Ben digs deep, all night long, digging down to the time before his father�s death, before Sputnik, back to the age of the dinosaurs. Then he digs a little farther, back to a time when all the world was water. A deluge filled with bright fish washes Ben back to the surface and the present. It is morning. Ben is carried high into the air on a geyser of water and fish. Grandma comes to the rescue and plugs the tunnel with pies. Ben sees his grandmother with new eyes. They breakfast on pie and then, on the last page, we discover that the whole story has been a memoir by the adult Ben looking back from adulthood on the other side of the world, remembering a magical and healing holiday.
Is this the real story? Where did all that emotion come from, especially in characters with minimal dot-eyed cartoon faces? For me, the emotion came from the pacing and the colours. When Ben is lonely and confused he is enclosed, hemmed in by claustrophobic borders. As soon as he decides to dig, as soon as he takes things into his own hands, the images broaden out into full-page spreads. Similarly, we trace the emotional trajectory of the book through colour. The endpapers � a gorgeous fall landscape of quilted fields in tones that evoke the work of the English Art Deco ceramics artist Clarice Cliff � lull the reader into expecting cozy nostalgia. But then there�s a glimpse of Ben in the car, a cool, almost clinical aerial view in shades of grey, brown, and beige. As we move in and out of Ben�s consciousness, van Stralen combines a blocky, black-outline cartoon style with fuzzy, shaded, digitally generated images. The deep indigo underground scenes are bordered with a reprise of the glowing landscape of life above, and then it all explodes into fluorescent fish � life, danger, and energy. For the first time, Ben opens his mouth. He has found a voice.
A five-year-old, who will be just as able to �read� this book as I am, will have a different story. That story might not have a father at all. That story might be about a sock monkey and an octopus. If the reader needs cozy, the story will be about home sweet home. If the reader has itchy feet, the story will be about the joys of the open road. We might never know what that individualized, custom-made story is.
The tension between what crocodiles say and what they do, between
what pictures show and what they tell � that�s the tension that
makes the negotiation between writer and reader ever-fresh in these
two titles. --Reviewed by Sarah Ellis, November 2005 Quill
& Quire books for young people
Children have finely tuned capabilities for detecting when grown-ups say one thing and do another. That's the premise that Heidbreder (I Wished for a Unicorn) and debuting illustrator Mat� entertain, with their sun-up to sundown visit to a goofy but loving crocodile family. "Crocodiles breakfast/ on crocodile food/ where crocodile manners/ are never rude," declares Heidbreder. "They chew and swallow/ their mouths closed tight./ Crocodiles say..." and with that page-turning cue, readers see the words "Always be polite!" dancing on the page while the reptilian family engages in a G-rated bacchanal. Mom Crocodile crams her mouth with a bushel of fruit and several muffins, Dad washes down his vittles with orange juice straight from the pitcher, and their offspring eats the cereal box along with its contents. Although most of the scenes are domestic in nature, the book does follow the youngster to school, where it's clear that when "Crocodiles say... We follow all the rules!" they're working from an unconventional set of guidelines. The schoolroom scene shows students chewing bubble gum and overturning furniture. Mat� displays the compositional savvy of a seasoned pro; at the same time, her bright, thickly applied acrylics and streamlined, vivacious characterizations emit a kid-like �lan�and will certainly remind readers of their own vibrant artwork. Ages 3-5.-- Publishers Weekly
In this fun title, there is a big difference between what crocodiles say and what they do. "Crocodiles breakfast/ on crocodile food/ where crocodile manners/ are never rude. They chew and swallow,/ their mouths closed tight, Crocodiles say..." Up the this point, the scaly siblings demonstrate impeccable etiquette. When you turn the page, however, chaos reigns. The words "Always be polite" are juxtaposed against flying muffins, fruit and cereal boxes. As we follow the crocs in their daily routine of flossing, getting dressed, going to school, exercising, and finally returning home to their waterbeds, we see more of their exploits.
Robert Heidbreder's gentle rhymes profess lessons in manners, while Rae Mate's bright, bold acrylic illustrations show the flip side. Children will enjoy the humourous disorder as the crocodiles break all the rules of decorum and wear their shirts backwards, balance underwear on their snouts and squirt toothpaste on their tails.
-- by Linda Ludke. Resource Links, Volume 11, Number 3, February 2006
Of crocs, donkeys and sheep
Crocodiles say one thing and do another in a celebration of childish
anarchy by Vancouverites Robert Heidbreder and debut children's
illustrator Rae Maté, Crocodiles Say.... "Crocodile creatures
choose with care / fresh socks, shined shoes and clean underwear.
/ They fiddle and faddle till perfectly dressed. / Crocodiles
say ... We always look our best!"
Maté's illustrations give a flamboyant, authentically childish
twist to Heidbreder's plot. As the high-spirited crocs make their
declaration, we see them prancing about with shoes on their heads,
underwear on their snouts and general sartorial innovation at
play. These crocs won't be socialized, but maintain their independent-mindedness
throughout the day - from breakfast, through school and play,
even up to their watery bedtime choices.
Heidbreder's bouncy verse takes kids through the rituals of the
day, while the mayhem and imagination of Maté's energetic illustrations
will leave them joyous with laughter. On one page, we see ever-so-sedate
table manners; on the next, juice is flowing down gullets and
toothy grins are stuffed with muffins, fruit and flying breakfast
cereal. Clear, cheerful colours, a sunshiny atmosphere and a pleasant,
wicked ebullience make a perfect storytime choice. -- The Toronto
Star, November 20, 2005 by Deirdre Baker
Everything is illustrated: Children's Book Gift Guide Sara O'Leary,
Vancouver Sun
Remember when you were small and a book was a thing that had pictures
in it?
Well, here are a few lovely things you can give your small friends
this season:
Who knew crocodiles had such impeccable manners? Well, Robert
Heidbreder, apparently. In his take on reptilian mores, "Crocodiles
love crocodile schools/ Crocodiles say ... We follow all the rules!"
There's no need for crocodile tears in a world as sunny and orderly
as this one.
Artist Rae Maté, who, like Heidbreder, lives in Vancouver, gives
us brightly hued crocodiles cavorting in a most winning fashion.
--The Vancouver Sun, November 26, 2005 by Galley Slave
Crazy crocodiles somersault boisterously through a kid's day --
at school, preschool, at home, playing outside. The text is divided,
with some large-print easy words for beginning readers. Lively
pictorial detail provides something new to notice at every reading.--
Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia), September 29,
2005 , Top Dozen: Recommended books for kids, Barbara Julian,
Times Colonist
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