SNIP SNAP!
What’s That?
by Mara Bergman & illustrated by Nick Maland
When an alligator chews open the door and comes creeping, creeping through their apartment, are Marissa, Eva and Jonathan afraid? “YOU BET THEY WERE!,” Bergman affirms, in a repeated, spread-filling, increasingly emphatic chorus. Though a rather pale shade of green in Maland’s cartoon scenes, the big, scaly intruder positively exudes toothy menace—until the children finally decide “they’d had enough / of all this scary alligator stuff. / They plucked up their courage / and gave a great shout: / ‘ALLIGATOR, YOU GET OUT!’ ” And was the alligator scared? “YOU BET IT WAS!” Turning tail, it hustles back down the stairs to the storm drain from whence it came. No diecuts, but still a good alternative to Ed Emberley’s classic Go Away, Big Green Monster (1992). (Picture book. 6-8)