The Underground Gators by: Tina Casey

This book explains why there is a need for all the different buildings, objects, and things in the city...for alligators of course! Personally I wasn't really interested in this book because from the beginning I thought in my head that the concept isn't realistic. However, trying to look at the book from a kids point of view I could see how this book would be fun to read. The text is set up in a joke style way, like "Why are there so many hot-dog stands in New York?" -answer: Alligators love hot dogs. Another example was: Why is smoke always coming up fromt the streets/sewers?" answer: Besides hot dogs, alligators love barbecue. It would be a fun lesson to do on Places and Cities. After reading this book outloud to the class, we could then go back to the text and find the real answers to these questions. When I read this book to two of my kids for my child study, they really liked the book and thought it was funny. However, they also picked up on the unrealistic idea that Alligators can live in the city. I asked them why they thought alligators could not live in New york, and *Nick responded by saying that "alligators need to live in warmer places". This shows that this book is interactive and allows kids to ask questions and make inferences based on their background knowledge.

After reading the letter from the author at the back of the book it made more sense why she was writing the book. She worked for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and always got questions from reporters around the world: Are there really alligators living in the sewers? There are stories of an alligator that was pulled out of a sewer in 1935. She also notes in this passage that the important thing to remember is that "nothing dissapears when you flush it down the drain, and everything is connected". From my opinion, I didn't really get that message from just reading the book and looking at the pictures. However, if we read this authors note during the preview of the book, that could maybe change the message of the story while reading it.