Product Description

Tina is given a very odd looking egg by her Uncle Ezra, so she wraps it in a soft blanket and puts it on her bedside table. That night, the egg hatches and out pops a baby alligator! Tina names him Alberto - Alberto Alligator. Their friendship blossoms and they spend their evenings dancing to Alberto's favourite record - the tango. Life is wonderful, until one day, disaster strikes! Alberto is flushed down the toilet in a freak dancing accident! How will Alberto find his way home through the labyrinthine underground tunnels to be reunited with Tina?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1151393 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

About the Author
Richard Waring has been a script-writer, an actor and a theatre director. He now lectures part-time, and also teaches biology, physics and chemistry! In his spare time he heads off to Spain with his wife and two daughters. Richard lives in Lewes, where his favourite bookshop is Bags of Books. The illustrator - Holly Swain has previously illustrated 'The Pied Piper' and 'Babouska' for HarperCollins Educational. She studied illustration at the University of the West Midlands and then went on to do an MA in Narrative Illustration and Editorial Design at Brighton. Holly lives in Brighton.

Customer Reviews

A lovely book that stands out from the crowd.
My daughter chose this from the library and after we'd renewed it a few times it was time to buy a copy. We liked this book because it was different. There are lots of lovely books around but so many are too similar to other things on the shelf. However, I haven't come across any other picture book with a similar story to this one. Tina's pet alligator, with whom she loves to dance, falls down the toilet by mistake and has a bit of an explore of the city's drainage systems (great for explaining to children what happens to our dirty water) but then he can't remember the way back. His appearance in lots of different bathrooms whilst looking for Tina leads to a city-wide panic about 1000 alligators on the loose which my children (3 & 4) think is very funny because they know that really it's just one friendly little fellow. Specially-trained alligator hunters go into the sewer system to catch the alligators but fortunately Tina thinks of a plan to help her pet find his way home and they can tango together once more. Terrific story and great pictures - though perhaps not one to introduce to sensitive children during toilet training!

By A Parry
We stumbled across this book at the library and as my then 2 year old son was enjoying toilet training and toilet humour, it was an obvious choice. On first reading we were hooked and had to get our own copy. A fantastic book about friendship, sewers, toilets and dancing the tango..... what more could a pre-schooler ask for? Still a firm favourite 2 years later.