“Peacrocodilly” by Felita Renee Kealing
Fresh, immediate, direct, Kealing’s first children book still manages to hold its mystery until the end, keeping the young reader engaged with the skills of an expert raconteur.
By Totie O’Brien
The story is in verse. Rhyming couplets have a singsong quality—pleasant to read out loud, recite, and repeat. Lots of action verbs give the text an even bouncier mood.
The word seems to dance, rather swim on the page (as the story occurs, indeed, underwater), and the book design fosters this floating, fully immersive feeling, thanks to its wide pages entirely filled with color. In such a spacious landscape, there’s room for the text to resonate…and for us to ponder, as the story is light, fun, but simultaneously deep.
It addresses fear, the unknown, the other, the stranger, and the different ways in which we can approach these matters. Fiend or friend? We won’t know until the last page.
Peacrocodilly, by Felita Renee Kealing, Archway Publishing, 24 pages. Sold at local bookstores.
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