|
Crocodiles Play
by Robert Heidbreder and illustrated by Rae Maté
|
Give a group of sporty crocs a baseball bat and ball, and before you
know it they're playing basketball, standing on bats (believe it, or
not) to sink the baseball into the net. Give them a set of golf clubs
and cleated shoes and a course where “No shot's too hard,/ no round's
too rough,” and watch them “swing in to play ... Baseball” Brandishing
a driver, the large-eyed and even longer-nosed female of the species
takes a swing at a pitch tossed from a sand trap by her partner.
Dare one describe the verse that drives this inventive tale about an
eccentric approach to organized sports as jocular? Describe it any way
you like, it does the trick, animating, along with Rae Maté's large,
comic creatures, a picture book in which, it appears, only hockey is
sacrosanct and mostly immune from crocodilian adaptations. “Now for the
funnest game of all ... crocs tape their tails/ just like their sticks/
and lace their skates/ for on-ice tricks.” Even if they are dressed for
the game, their version of it is a little unorthodox: down the ice
these crocs skate, large and many-coloured snouts full of sharp white
teeth. And the puck? Safely ensconced in one of those crocs' jaws.
--Susan Perren The Globe and Mail, May 25, 2009
|
|
