When an alligator chews open the door and comes creeping, creeping through their apartment, are Marissa, Eva and Jonathan afraid? “YOU BET THEY WERE!,” Bergman affirms, in a repeated, spread-filling, increasingly emphatic chorus. Though a rather pale shade of green in Maland’s cartoon scenes, the big, scaly intruder positively exudes toothy menace—until the children finally decide “they’d had enough / of all this scary alligator stuff. / They plucked up their courage / and gave a great shout: / ‘ALLIGATOR, YOU GET OUT!’ ” And was the alligator scared? “YOU BET IT WAS!” Turning tail, it hustles back down the stairs to the storm drain from whence it came. No diecuts, but still a good alternative to Ed Emberley’s classic Go Away, Big Green Monster (1992). (Picture book. 6-8)
