The Alligator’s Smile and Other Poems

Photographs by Jason Stemple
Millbrook Press (September 1, 2016)
ISBN-10: 1467755753
ISBN-13: 978-1467755757

After Jason and I did THE EGRET’S DAY for Boyds Mills, and with the then editor’s enthusiasm for another project, we settled on the idea of alligators as being a good follow up because Jason lives in South Carolina and already had a whole lot of alligator photos from there as well as from having been an Everglades Fellowship winner ten years earlier. But a new editor arrived in the middle of these plans, and she was not fond of photographs in picture books. So we took the project to Lerner where we have been very happy with our reception.

What reviewers have said:

• “A splendid addition to the creators’ explorations of the natural world.”–Kirkus
• “A fabulous merging of science and poetry, this latest addition from veteran author Yolen provides an up-close view of the American alligator. The poems vary in style, from haiku to limerick, while the photographs of real alligators in their habitats are enticing and chilling.”–Scool Library Journal
• “What especially floors me about ALLIGATOR’S SMILE AND OTHER POEMS is the exceptional quality of the photographs…entertaining and instructive.”—Richie’s Picks