Snip Snap! What's That?

by Mara Bergman, Nick Maland (Illustrator)

snip
snap!
SNIP
SNAP!
SNIP
SNAP!What's that?
And what will
the children do
once they find out?

Genres: Picture Books, Storytime, Childrens, Animals, Humor, Fiction, Family

32 pages, Hardcover

First published March 17, 2005

About the author

Mara Bergman is an award-winning author, poet, and editor who has written more than twenty books for young children, including Bears, Bears Everywhere!; Snip Snap! What’s That?; Oliver Who Would Not Sleep; and Oliver Who Travelled Far and Wide. Born in New York and raised on Long Island, she now lives in England.

Reviews

[Gwen the Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books to read aloud. There is drama, suspense, and a tremendous conclusion. The kids will get involved with you when you ask, "And were the children scard?" the kids will yell, "You bet they were!" I read this in an interview and it did the trick, so it should work for your group too! A mite scary for under 3 or scaredy-cats.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is extremely funny and I cannot wait to use this in storytime.

[Sarah Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. The author included many sound effects, which children always have fun doing. Not only did this book have great sound effects, it used many adjectives to describe the alligator as well as the children. The adjectives described how the alligator was moving, what it looked like, as well as how terrifying it was to the children. As a child, i would love to hear my mom read a story to me and do all the sound effects. It would make me excited about reading that story and to hear about the alligator.

Another great part of this story was the choice of color and illustration method. The colors help the children pay more attention to the story. The pictures also had a great way for the children to point out where the alligator was. The illustrator would draw bits and pieces of the alligator, not the full thing. This book would also be good to include the kids and ask questions like, how would they feel if an alligator was in their home etc.

[Ina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great read aloud! My story time audience got up and gathered around the book to find out what happens when three children are stalked by a big mean alligator who comes "creeping...creeping...creeping up the stairs." The kids gathered around the book in order to point out all the wonderful details to be found in the illustrations. The colors are bright and the text is filled with wonderful sounds and the repeated phrase, "Were the children scared? You bet they were!" It didn't take long for the kids to pick up on that and they giggled as they joined in. The alligator comes closer and closer and and scarier and scarier until the children decide they have had enough of that scary old alligator. In the end, as a tribute to the urban legend, the alligator is seen slinking home - and the last illustration shows just the tip of his tail disappearing into a man-hole with the cover pushed aside. "Snip snap! The end."

[Taylor Railey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fabulous book to read aloud. I work in an after school care program with kindergarteners and they really enjoyed listening to this story. I was able to change my voice tone to follow the story life. The suspense really engaged the children and the were able to catch on with the repeated "you bet they were" line. The story was about an alligator who creeped up to a group of children to scare them but at the story they were able to get courage and actually scare the alligator instead. The illustrations were very colorful and visually appealing. I loved how the text was different through out the story depending on what was going on. Sometimes it was all capitalized and sometimes is was big and scattered through the page. It added to the illustrations and suspense.

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The rhyming scheme of this children's book was good, but the story left a lot to be desired. Nor do I particularly want my child to think that all you need to do is scream at an alligator and it'll hightail it out of there, because that's not how it works.

[Michelle now at StoryGraph · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my children's first "scary" bedtime stories, and part of my top five favorite children's stories of all time. A classic in our home.

[Cosette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome! Loved the repetition! Great suspense and fabulous closing! Maybe the best book I've read this year. (It made my listener giggle)

[Tracy Schillemore · Rating 4 out of 5]

The children are afraid of the alligator creeping around their house but became brave and scared the alligator away.

[Bhargavi Balachandran · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wish the children had befriended the alligator. The illustrations were cute and rhyming was clever. It was pretty funny, too. The only 'but' for me was the ending.

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Repetition makes this alligator tale (no pun intended) predictable and hilarious. The children hear a ‘snip snap’ all through the house and ask, ‘what’s that?’ time and time again until the alligator gets closer and closer. Were they scared? You bet they were! They try to hide, they try to get out of its way, when they decide to take the upper hand and tell the alligator to get out. Now, it is the alligator’s turn to be scared…was it? You bet it was! A great story for predicting, while a child can relate to imaginary things that are can sometimes be scary without being real.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yet another book received from my library that I assume is missing pages, possibly the entire first part of the story. I started with an alligator crawling up the stairs. I'm not sure how he got there or what the children are doing home alone. Very strange, needless to say. What I did read sounded like a lot of fun.

[Lagobond · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love read-aloud books that play with typography to guide the reader, and integrate the text into the illustrations. This book does a beautiful job of that. I also adore surreal, silly stories which invite kids to participate in the action. Again, score!

What I don't love quite as much here is that the words don't always flow well. There's some rhyming, and then you expect some more... but you just get regular sentences instead. So all that fun and exciting build-up ends up falling flat somehow. Still, I think for kids who love to act out books, this should be a hit.

If your kiddo enjoys this, try also: Bedtime for Monsters, We're Going on a Bear Hunt, A Story A Story, An African Tale, Don't Push the Button! and The Book with No Pictures. And for elementary-school age kids: I'm Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups.

[Claudia Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Snip Snap What’s That, is about three kids running scared from an alligator. The kids hide, run, shut the door, and cried until they were done and decided to chase the alligator out. This cute little story had a twist at the end that I wasn’t expecting. I think this book is great to help kids learn about different kind of sounds and movements. It uses words from “swishhhhhed” to “creak” to “bump” and “thump”. This book also describes the alligator as “slithering”, “flicking”, “stumbling”, “creeping”, and many more. The illustrations are great as well. Each page helps move the story at a different pace. Some pages have several boxes of pictures showing a slower movement, while some illustrations take up the two whole pages. Two of the pages don’t have any words which helps causes suspense on what will happen next.
I think this book would be a great read aloud because of all the sounds and description in the book. Some of the words are stretched out, this allows you to really have fun with how you say the words and at what pace you read the story. With all the sounds, you could make many different noises that the kids would get a kick out of. Also, I think kids would enjoy looking at the pictures and waiting to see what happens next.

[Makenzie F · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the start readers are shown an empty lobby with no one but a doorman to busy reading a newspaper. The story is about young children that are hearing weird sounds. It does not take long for the children to figure out it is an Alligator chasing them, chopping his teeth and licking his lips ready to eat them. At the end the children decided to scare the Alligator. This caused the alligator fall the down the stairs all the way to his home. This is a great story about children that were scared but as the story went on the children got tired of being scared and decided to stand up to their fear. The illustration is bright and bold. On some pages the characters stand out with bright colors, but other times the background is bright while the characters are more neutral.

I would use this book with kindergartners or first graders because it is a well written story about over coming fears. It is also a good story to learn different sounds effects.

[Camilla Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book to read aloud to kids! The use of alliteration, rhymes, attention to detail and gorgeous illustrations add amazing detail and beauty to the story. Vibrant colors fill the pages and is easy to see from far away, making it a wonderful read aloud book. The book prompts questions to the reader and is done in a humorous way that every kid would love. The use of different fonts and word shapes draw attention to the exciting and/or interesting aspects of the story and really work to make the whole story complete.

[Savannah Webster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read aloud that kept the kids on the edge of their seat and we had the perfect puppet to really bring the book to life! It is a dramatic read with pauses and noises and it draws the reader into the perspective of the children by asking predictive questions! "And were the children scared? You bet they were!" I won't tell you the ending but the kids finally find some courage and it all ends well! The colorful illustrations from Nick Maland keep the story fun and light hearted despite the suspense!

[Kalynne]

Book one (3-4 minutes): Snip Snap! What was that? By Mara Bergman

Song/rhyme/game one (3-4 minutes): Five Little Monkeys Swinging from a Tree

Book two (3-4 minutes): Solomon Crocodile by Catherine Rayner

Song/rhyme/game two (3-4 minutes): We must Face the facts by Jim Gills

Book three (3-4 minutes): The Crocodile and the Dentist by Taro Gomi

Song/ rhyme/ game three (3-4 minutes): There was a Crocodile by The Learning Station

Special Signs: alligator (crocodile), bite

Activity: https://media.craftulate.com/wp-conte...

[Emmaline Sorensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have had this entire book memorized from start to finish since I was about 4 years old. There’s an old home video of me repeating the words out loud on a family vacation as my family sits around and listens. I loved this book and still do, and I plan to share it with my future posterity.

I love the chaotic, and slightly scary adventure the kids have with this alligator. More so, I adore the children’s bravery as they face their fears and stand up for themselves! Praise for this book for shaping me and my childhood!

[Marian Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

08/19/25 The build-up in this story is fun and just a *tiny* bit scary. The alligator is approaching the reader, slithering, opening its jaws, getting closer, closer, closer (I love the 2-page spread that is just a giant close-up of the alligator's face) and then boom! The children in the book find their courage and tell off the alligator, "ALLIGATOR, YOU GET OUT!" Then it's the gator's turn to get scared and run away. The children are their own heroes, hooray!

I did skip the page where Jonathan cried & cried - just in case there was a kid named Jonathan in the group.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three children are frightened by the scary alligator with long teeth and claws of an alligator that has crept up their stairs...until they decide that they are tired of being afraid and take a stand against the alligator.

This is a super cute book. We read this book for storytime and the kids loved it.

[Drew Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

When an alligator finds its way from the sewer to an apartment building it understandably frightens the three children who live there. Can they overcome their fear and send it packing?

I didn't expect much from this book for some reason but it was really fun. It's a book about overcoming your fears cleverly disguised behind the unique premise of an alligator stalking a trio of siblings in a big city apartment building. Yep.

[Molly Cluff (Library!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

We liked repeating the "You bet they were!" part when we read this for preschool storytime. I think we did a theme of Be Brave or something cute like that. With the zillions of cute alligator/crocodile books and songs in our lineup it's amazing we haven't done an exclusively alligator storytime yet.

[Rachel Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

One thing I loved about this book was the repeated phrases. There was one phrase that was repeated over and over and I know reading this in a classroom that the kids would love to join in and help out. The book also had lots of bright illustrations that caught my eye and kept me looking during the entire book. Great book for a classroom!

[Eleanor W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good interactive book, this would be great for a GROUP read out loud book, you can just imagine the group of children yelling
" you bet they were!"

Giving this one a 5 because Eleanor said mommy should give it a 5 star rating :)

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super fun! The repeated question/answer of "Were the children scared?" "Yes they were!" draws listeners in and invites participation and anticipation from even the youngest crowd. This is a great group read aloud for the preK crowd!

[Maeve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great picture book for storytime or sharing with one-two children. Just scary and silly enough, with places for children to participate with the reading/telling of the story.

Storytime:
Alligators
Scary Stories

[Kathleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The children are home, and an alligator comes creeping up the stairs. They were scared! What to do! How to defend themselves. I can't really put my finger on why this book was so blah....but....it didn't work for me. The idea is cute....sort of.....

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how this book teaches children to acknowledge their fears and recognize that being afraid is OK. But it also empowers children to face their fears and not let them be controlled by them...all in a really fun to read book! Great rhyming text and fun illustrations!

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You bet" this is such a fun book about some children who have to defend themselves against a rogue alligator who snuck into their apartment complex. Adorable to read and a crowd favorite in our house.