It was a little girl in Toronto who started it all by demanding a poem at bed-time. Not an unreasonable request–and with a father who wrote poems the problem should have been a simple one. Dennis Lee knew lots of nursery rhymes, but none of them seemed just right for a small Canadian about to go off to sleep. So he began writing poems especially for the occasion.
Then another small girl arrived, and more poems were needed. The collection grew and grew as the children next door and then class-mates at school and then their parents and their friends in other cities became entranced by the rhythm and fun of Alligator Pie.
"These are not coffee-table poems," says Dennis Lee, "they're meant to be used. Children's poems pass around in weird and wonderful versions, and the changes always makes sense– to the tongue and ear, if not necessarily to the mind. If your child inadvertently rewrites some of these poems, please take their version more seriously than mine."
Frank Newfeld's drawings will excite the imagination of any child. They are as playful and vibrant as the poems and spring from a lively sense of children's vision. A happier combination of talents could not have been found.
