I’m apparently mapping a spectrum of Judith Kerr books.
At one end you’ve got you’ve got The Tiger Who Came to Tea: lovely, magical, ideal. At the other end, pleasant but much more mundane, you’ve got Mog the Forgetful Cat--still good, but not so rare.
So where does The Crocodile Under the Bed fall? Happily, closer to the magical end. It starts with a realistic situation: Matty can’t go to a party he wants to attend, because he’s sick, so he has to stay home with his grandpa. His parents try to console him, but he won’t be consoled, and to be fair, the grandfather pictured here looks nice but static: he looks like he’s just going to sit, and, as the images show, fall asleep while reading.
Once he’s dozing, though, magic happens. The crocodile who gives the book its title emerges from under the bed and invites Matty to a party. Matty agrees, and they fly out the window. They go to a special party which has animal-based versions of all the attractions from the party Matty is missing, and more: water slides, cake, and Chimpy, a chimp who carries and bounces Matty along.
Eventually they have to hurry home, so Matty’s family won’t know he snuck out, and the crocodile flies Matty over a line of people getting soaked by rain. Matty beats his family home, and, when they get there, he learns that a) they had a bad time because of the rain and because the attractions were over-hyped, and b) they brought Matty cake. He shares that with the crocodile, who is now back under the bed.
So, Matty goes not just fun to make up for what he misses, he gets a kind of revenge, and a reminder he’s still loved.
The illustrations have the look of colored pencil, with the gentleness that carries, and all the creatures at the party are smiling.
This is sort of Where the Wild Things Are, with siblings and an extended family, and less of an edge, but with some lovely gentle magic. I have to say, I loved Kerr’s refusal to explain, which was there in The Tiger Who Came to Tea: and is here again too.
