There were things I loved about this book and things I did not like at all. He works with some difficult themes (racism, friendship, etc.) in a magical and brilliant way.
I thought it could have been way shorter. It's too long for kids. Maybe it should be a series?? I don't know. I also thought the use of fancy words was at times, pretentious and too much.
p. 34: The writing, in perfect purple calligraphy, indicated exactly what to do. It even instructed her to find, hanging from a nail in the pantry, a giant spoon with a three-foot-long handle. Beatrice lowered her rope ladder, carried the glue fixings and the spoon to the pit near the river, set a fire, hung a pot over the burning embers and followed the instructions. Easy as pie. She did not know why people said easy as pie, because good pie was surely hard ot make. Making glue would be easier.
p. 118 "It must be awfu to not know what you did, but to still feel bad about it," she said.
"It feels like I am trapped," Croc Harry said.
A flight flicked on in Beatrice's brain. Now she understood that crocodiles also had deep, unexpressed feelings.
p. 123 Beatrice read the message aloud. "Cue number 3. Crocodiles are social reptiles, so why does Croc Harry fail to fraterize? Why does he never swim, hunt or eat with other crocodiles? Is Croc Harry who he says he is? Is he worthy of your friendship? Find clue number 5 on Croc Harry's belly.
Later she finds out his belly is soft and lovely....quite the opposite of his scutes you normally see.
p. 217 Friends are like books. You carry them with you forever, regardless of mundane impediments like geography.
p. 241 Horace to Beatrice: Sometimes you anno me, but even then I don't stop liking you.
Goodreads says:
One of Canada's most celebrated author's debut novel for young readers
Beatrice, a young girl of uncertain age, wakes up all alone in a tree house in the forest. How did she arrive in this cozy dwelling, stocked carefully with bookshelves and oatmeal accoutrements? And who has been leaving a trail of clues, composed in delicate purple handwriting?
So begins the adventure of a brave and resilient Black girl's search for identity and healing in bestselling author Lawrence Hill's middle-grade debut. Though Beatrice cannot recall how or why she arrived in the magical forest of Argilia--where every conceivable fish, bird, mammal and reptile coexist, and any creature with a beating heart can communicate with any other--something within tells her that beyond this forest is a family that is waiting anxiously for her return.
Just outside her tree-house door lives Beatrice's most unlikely ally, the enormous and mercurial King Crocodile Croc Harry, who just may have a secret of his own. As they form an unusual truce and work toward their common goal, Beatrice and Croc Harry will learn more about their forest home than they ever could have imagined. And what they learn about themselves may destroy Beatrice's chances of returning home forever.
