This strong debut picture book will leave young listeners and librarians alike hungry for the author’s next offering. A perfect choice for storytime. The media used in this book is colored crayon, it is not polished or reinforced by a computer drawing program. This benefits in making the book appear more personal and therefore more meaningful to the reader from the author.

But Barry the Beaver, early one morning, discovered them and hid them away. Consequently Alan's jungle visit later that morning was not so scary and the animals laughed at him. Alan was no longer scary! This is a very funny board book with some great illustrations and a brilliant twist. Alan is an alligator and comes from a long line of scary alligators. Everyday after brushing his teeth, he goes into the jungle to scare everyone. All the jungle animals are scared of Alan and his big scary teeth, and Alan enjoys scaring them. But when he’s alone Alan reveals his not-so-scary secret, a secret which none of the jungle animals can ever find out! Alan the Crocodile likes to scare the other animals in the jungle. It’s all he knows how to do. Every morning he polishes his scales, sharpens his nails, brushes each of his teeth for ten minutes and practices his frightening faces in the mirror, then he sets off to go and do some scaring. Returning home later that day filled with joy. Alan comes from a long line of super scary alligators with perfectly sharp, sparkly white teeth to make that job all the more easy. But unfortunately Alan is hiding a pretty big secret. His teeth are FAKE! So, naturally, Alan hides his teeth when he goes to sleep so that all the animals he scares each day won't know he's a phoney. That is until one of them steals his teeth! The illustrations are brilliant. I love the scary faces that Alan pulls. I also love the little items dotted around the images. Children might not notice them, but I’m sure the adults reading the book will – Eau De Gator perfume, The Jungle Times newspaper, etc.

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What examples can you find to support that the animals wanted to be Alan’s friends but were too scared of him and his teeth.

The witty Jarvis (“Lazy Dave”) makes all the right moves, drawing Alan’s jungle world with his usual loose, jagged charm.Alan's Big Scary Teeth seems to be a favourite with kids. I've read this multiple times to children I have worked with and it's always engaging and enjoyable. The theme of wanting to be perceived as fearsome or tough but still want to be liked and loved by one's friends will strike a chord with many young readers.