Book Review: What Does The Crocodile Say? – Eva Montanari

Title: What Does The Crocodile Say?
Author: Eva Montanari
Genre: Children’s fiction
Publisher: Book Island
Publication date: Out now

Review

I was sent this cute book by Book Island, an independent publishing house based in Bristol, specialising in children’s books.

What Does The Crocodile Say? tells the story of a crocodile who is going to his first day of nursery and isn’t at all pleased about it. After going through their usual morning routine, it suddenly changes when they get in the car and drive to a new and scary place.

The crocodile cries, but with a bit of encouragement starts to join in all the activities and quickly forgets why he was sad in the first place! Soon he is reunited with his mum and cannot wait to get to nursery again the following day.

Before I get into what I like about this book I want to get out of the way what I don’t like and I feel that with very small changes and considerations this book could’ve been perfect. I would like to have seen the main characters have no defined gender or roles so the person reading with the child could substitute the ‘mum’ and ‘boy’ with whatever relationship they have with the child. This would give the book a broader appeal (in my opinion).

So, getting to what I like about this book. I really enjoyed the illustrations (look at the baby animals sleeping 😍) and use of onomatopoeia. The story in itself is great for introducing children to the idea of going to nursery and shows that they might be sad at first but they’ll have lots to look forward to and new friends to make. It also reinforces the knowledge that they will be reunited with their parent or carer.

This is a lovely book but I am not entirely convinced I would buy it due to it being a ‘mum’ and ‘son’ relationship. If you don’t mind that then I would highly recommend this book.