Alligator Arrived With Apples: A Potluck Alphabet Feast

by Crescent Dragonwagon, Crescent Dragonwagon

There's going to be a feast! And everyone is here with food from A to Z! There is Elderberry Elixir from Elephant and Mocha Mousse made by Mouse. By the time Zebra Zips in with his Zaftig Zucchini, there will be enough food to feed a zoo! So come and join the party and don't forget your appetite!

Genres: Picture Books, Thanksgiving, Animals, Food, Holiday, Childrens, Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Crescent Dragonwagon is the daughter of the writers Charlotte Zolotow and the late Hollywood biographer Maurice Zolotow. She is the author of 40 published books, including cookbooks, children's books, and novels. With her late husband, Ned Shank, Crescent owned the award-winning Dairy Hollow House, a country inn and restaurant in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, for eighteen years. She teaches writing coast to coast and is the co-founder (with Ned) of the non-profit Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about animals such as an alligator with apples going to a potluck alphabet feast. Each animal brings food that matches their name. It is very well illustrated.

[Milagros Vazquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary
This book starts from a-z naming the different type of food that the animals are getting ready to eat for their potluck. Most of the animals comes from different types of cultures and are identify. The food and the animals are in a-z order.
Response
I like how this book helps students learn different types of food from a-z. I rate this four, because I see that there are some difficulty that can arise when a child is reading this. It’s an alphabet book which helps student learn their alphabet but I wouldn’t recommend this for a kindergarten or first grader, unless they are reading with an adult. Its seem because the length of the pages it may stop many students from continuing reading this. But overall, it has good quality, a good integrity, it is original, it does expand awareness of cultural differences and types of food (TMY, 2010,p.8-9).
Classroom Connection
This book can be connected with science, learning about different types of animal. It can be connected to social studies when students can research information about different countries and cultures. This would be a good math strategy when each student counts all the animals that attended the potluck.
Text Complexity
Lexile level is 340. The grade level that the child may read independently is 3rd grade, but the interest grade may be k-2.

[Shanna Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crescent Dragonwagon presents a delightfully fun Thanksgiving feast, delivered by animals A to Z. For each letter of the alphabet, one animal joins the feast bearing an appropriate contribution, and the verb designating its delivery also matches the letter. Most of the foods are fairly traditional for this time of year ("Cat Came with Cranberry Compote and Cherry Cobbler") but some are pretty unusual ("Koala Kicked in Kale, Kohlrabi, and Kasha"). All the food seems to be vegetarian, except maybe the Gravy that Goose Gave. But since some of the feasters traditionally appear on the Thanksgiving table, we can overlook the fact that some of the guests are carnivorous, and just be glad they all get along. This lighthearted celebration, with enjoyable wordplay and some alliterative alphabet education, provides a needed counterpoint to more serious Thanksgiving books.

[Mobley-Carter Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Dragonwagon's Alligator Arrived with Apples: A Potluck Alphabet Feast animals and foods arrive in A-B-C order to make contributions to the Thanksgiving feast. The problem is that a lot food is needed for the Thanksgiving feast, and the solution is that a number of animals bring meals to complete the feast.

A great activity to promote literacy would be to focus on the beginning and ending letters of each dish and each animal. This will help with letter recognition as well as letter pronunciation. Picture cards could be made to illustrate the words, the foods, and the animals. All you need is your cameraphone, a color printer, laminating pouches, and a laminator. Plan and arrange questions.

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like that this book is about the coming together of a diverse group of animals to share a meal together. It reminds me a lot of partaking in communion at church. This is another book where I wish the illustrations were better, but I like the communion aspect of it enough to give it five stars anyway.

[Sarah Ashburn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does a great job of first sound isolation. This allows children to have extra practice with the alphabet and the different sounds that the letters make. This would be great for a kindergarten class learning their ABC's. This could also be read around Thanksgiving to lead into other Thanksgiving based lessons.

[Wendy Holliday · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crescent Dragonwagon is possibly the most awesome name ever.

My son read this to me when he was seven, and instead of saying 'Parrot', he said 'pah-root-to' ... we still tease him about that, especially when he brags about how smart he is.

I'm a bad mother.

[June · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pulled this for a kindergarten Thanksgiving visit. Tried to tie it in a little more saying how some people spend Thanksgiving with friends. 11/20/13

Used with a PreK 4 for outreach. Was a little long for the 4th book.

[Fibersian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another ABC book with interesting vocabulary. A zoo full of animals gather with alphabetic food. Some of the words will be unfamiliar to the reader as well as the kids so a pre-read will be helpful. Z zebra comes with a zaftig zucchini - zaftig is a yiddish word for plump.

[Barbara VA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book for explaining alliteration. Colorful and fun illustrations, a great Thanksgiving book!

[Jessica Vandewarker]

Alliteration, limited rhyme, alphabet progression.

[Emily Rosbottom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good for teaching the alphabet and letter sounds. I liked the idea that each ingredient was a different letter. Colorful illustrations as well!

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

So cute! Perfect for Thanksgiving.

[Makkena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an easy way for children just starting school to learn their alphabet if read to.

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great 'ABC' book for young children!

[Meribeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A feast of Thanksgiving proportion arrives in alphabet order, filling the table with a potluck array of eatable treats, while a zoo full of animals gathers to party. By turns cheerful, creative and comic, the participants bring holiday spirits of revelry and delight along with their culinary contributions to the festival of plenty.
Dragonwagon’s energetic rhymes supply rhythmic accompaniment for Aruego and Dewey’s page turning pictures, generating a memorable romp. This delightful picture book is one readers will return to each year because its simple joyfulness reminds us that we are rich when we celebrate the importance of friends, food and fun.

[bookseverlasting · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's difficult to write a good alphabet book -- I mean, really, how many words start with the letter x? This book gives it a good try, but it falls a little short. I like the idea of all kinds of animals getting together for a Thanksgiving feast, each one bringing something. It just doesn't have that x-factor.

[kaitlyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think they listened to the actual story much, but the kindergartners really enjoyed shouting out the letters of the alphabet and telling me other words they know that begin with their letters, especially when it was their names. I didn't love it, but we don't have many age-appropriate Thanksgiving stories in our library, so I had to make do.

[Candice Call · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read aloud book for preschool-1st grade. Can be used to teach letter, alpahbet, alliteration, foods, animals, or thanksgiving as long as that is what the class celebrates. Must use caution when teaching about thanksgiving since that is what the book illustrates.

[Shelli · Rating 2 out of 5]

An alphabet book for young readers shouldn't be as wordy as this. I liked the idea behind story, a group of animal friends bring food from every letter of the alphabet to share at a Thanksgiving Feast, however I was ready for the book to be done long before the letter Z.

[Katie Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about a feast to which all animals are invited, and they each have to bring dish. It goes from A to Z with animal names and food names. Some of the food names were a stretch, and there were some that younger children have probably never heard of. This was not my most favorite story.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A playful look at the ABCs, I picked this one up after organizing the ABC section at work and noticed the author's name and the fact that it was illustrated by my favorite illustrators from when I was a kid, Aruego and Dewey.

[Georgiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute alphabet book centered around Thanksgiving.

[Sandra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Its a cute book for little kids

[Kim]

Features: rhyme, beginning sounds, alliteration, consonant blends, short and long vowel sounds

[Edna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Animals in alphabetical order bring food in alphabetical order for Thanksgiving. Very clever but some words maybe too complicated even for preschoolers.

[Rosa Cline · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a creative alphabet book. Every page says of someone bringing something that starts with that letter of the alphabet from A to Z and at the end all the friends have a wonderful dinner together

[Dalton Prather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Later alligator. After while crocodile.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the animal friends from A to Z bring something that starts with the same letter as their name for the Thanksgiving feast.

[Abigail Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This ABC book is just okay. Nothing to special and it honestly didn't hold my attention so I don't believe it could hold the attention of young children. The illustrations are cute but very small. The words used many students wont even know what you are talking about.