Watch Out for the Crocodile

This Swedish mother/daughter combination have come up with a warm-hearted and realistic story about a father/daughter combination! Tora finds her Dad rather boring: ‘All Dad does is work, drink coffee, sit at the computer, and talk on his cell phone.’ But now they are to go off on a camping holiday and see wild animals, and she is tremendously excited. But boring old Dad thinks they have to shop for food first, and then it’s an awfully long car journey to the forest. Where are all the animals, thinks Tora, but Dad says they have to be patient – and he’s still on his cell phone. Evidently Swedish forests don’t abound in the kind of wild animals that Tora wants to see, but her imagination takes over, and a tree root becomes a boa constrictor; there is a dead tree that looks like a lion, and a group of big stones that look awfully like hippos, and the stumps of a ‘troll forest’ turn into real trolls and are quite friendly. As they camp in the evening, Dad shows that he can have an imagination too, and the group of islands in the lake nearby becomes a water dragon. Dad is reassuring when Tora thinks the dragon might want to eat them: ‘They…only eat fish fingers.’ After hot dogs round the camp fire, they are off to their tent, surrounded by all the wonderful animals Tora has conjured up during their adventures, and she knows her dad is the ‘best dad in the world’. The combination of the relationship between Tora and her Dad and the delicate and detailed illustrations is a delight, and the modern aspect of a father who is too dependent on his technology and a daughter with a high imagination who finds it all too boring for words is realistic. A charming and fun story.