I,+Crocodile

(Review by Casey Wilcock)

Title: //I, Crocodile// Author: Fred Marcellino Edition: First Edition 1999 Publisher: Harper Collins ISBN: 0062051687 Length: 32 pages Age range: Kindergarten to Grade 3

Author Biography: Fred Marcellino started his career as an expressionist painter in Florence during the 1960's. He started getting into book publishing in 1969 and designed book covers and illustrations. He illustrated books such as //Puss in Boots// and //A Rat's Tale.// Marcellino won a Caldecott Honor Award for his illustrations in 1991. //I, Crocodile// was his first book that he both wrote and illustrated. Marcellino died in 2001 of cancer.

Summary: This book follows an egotistical crocodile living in the Nile, where he is pampered and revered as a symbol of the early Egyptian pharaohs. He lives a nice life until one day, Napoleon comes to invade Egypt and conquer the territory there. He demands that the soldiers take back some artifacts and souvenirs from Egypt for Napoleon to put in his mansion in Paris. So along with pottery, jewelry, furniture, and clothing from Egypt, the soldiers take Crocodile himself and bring him to Paris. He is put on a pedestal for people to observe this new and exotic creature, but the novelty of watching Crocodile quickly wears off for the people and no one pays attention to him anymore. His life here is much different than in the Nile, and he wishes he could go back home. One day, he hears that Napoleon's chef wants to cook him into "crocodile pie", so he decides he has to escape. He breaks out of his cage and eventually decides to live in the sewer underneath Paris.

Book Review: I enjoyed this book, I remember reading it when I was younger because I was always interested in anything involving history. Reading this book now, I still enjoyed it. The plot is entertaining with some moments of comedy, and the illustrations are colorful and pleasing to look at. This book would be good to read to children if you want to introduce some different eras of history, such as Ancient Egypt or the age of Napoleon.

Analysis of Literary Elements: I think the most important literary element in this book is the character traits that you can see in the main character, Crocodile. Crocodile is a very dynamic character who is brought to life by the writings of the author. The first person point of view is good because children are able to see inside his head and what he is thinking. This book would be great for children to make a character map of the different traits you can see in Crocodile. The vocabulary in this book is also good, because there are some more advanced words that you can teach to students that they might not know otherwise.