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Solomon Crocodile
by Catherine Rayner

Release Date: 1st Apr 2011
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 978 0 2305 2992 9
RRP: £10.99

Average Customer Rating: 
(0.0 based on 0 ratings)

Visually gorgeous but with a strangely negative vibe...

I don’t know about you, but if I spot an author, who has won something, say: the Kate Greenaway Medal… I guess I kind of expect their work to be of a certain level. In the case of children’s fiction: something bright, simple without being dumbed down, entertaining and with a hint of the educational or moralistic. It’s a lot to ask, I agree. But that is what makes a winning book for me. It has to have everything.

Solomon Crocodile has a big, bold and sparkly cover; with the illustrations (by the author) managing to capture the inherent cuteness of a crocodile, thereby making it entirely not scary. The problem doesn’t lie in the illustrations though, they are superb and visually enticing. The problem is a personal one. I just don’t like children’s books which hang on a negative hook.

To explain: Solomon is a mischievous so and so, constantly on the lookout to stir up the frogs, dragonflies or storks. Understandably, this behaviour is not well liked or tolerated by the recipients. And also, understandably, they are perpetually telling him in their many and varied ways to get lost. My problem is twofold. Firstly, why make the croc look friendly and charming, when he’s actually a pain in the backside; and secondly, why pummel little children’s brains with the message that if someone is being annoying (not mean or nasty, just doing something you don’t like), you should in no uncertain terms tell whomever it is to go away. In the hippo’s case, he does this in a frighteningly aggressive way. Not good.

Yes, there is the element of “Surprise! There’s another annoying crocodile to go around bugging everyone with – hurrah!”. But is that in and of itself a good thing? If your child is rejected by those well behaved children, encouraging him/her to form friendships with equally socially inept individuals is hardly going to be helpful.

I know, it’s a children’s story. It’s all harmless fun, isn’t it? Is it? For fear of sounding overly sensitive or worse, politically correct, I honestly think that as parents we have a duty to cultivate positive attributes in our little ones. Whether yours is the child who continually tells others to go away, or the one that is overbearing and unrestrained; neither are showing the kind of respect for each other that they should. After all, all of life is the playground. How they learn to behave there will follow them into adulthood.

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