Friday, June 6, 2008

The Crocodile Blues by Coleman Polhemus


I was browsing the new books shelf at the library for picture books to read for the PB&J Challenge, and I couldn't resist taking this one home.

This book cover, with it's dark blue and black with the splash of bright yellow, really catches your attention. The inner illustrations of this (mostly) wordless book are simple silhouettes in just one or two colors per page. All the pictures are in some combination of blue, black, yellow, and white. The author incorporates fold-out pages to help tell his story, and I thought this was going to be a real winner. Unfortunately, what seemed like was going to be a really cute story ended with me and both kids going, "huh." I think the humor just went completely over all of our heads.

The (apparent) premise is a man goes to the store and on his way home he encounters a machine that, when a coin is inserted, spits out an egg. The egg ends up being that of a crocodile, who proceeds to run the man and his pet bird out of his home and then opens a blues bar in his apartment. While the pictures are fantastic, the story was lacking. But then, I've never been a real fan of wordless books, so maybe it was just me.

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