Hey, Al

Title: Hey, Al

Author: Arthur Yorinks

Illustrator: Richard Egielski

Stars: 1 out of 5

Summary: A man and his dog live together in an apartment. The man works hard and does not have much. He is visited by a bird who takes him away to a paradise. In the paradise the man Al and his dog Eddie turn into birds and realize that they would much rather be at home even if it’s not perfect.

                Yorinks is the Author of this story and I feel it was a bit confusing. As I was reading the story to myself I could not really figure out who was talking to who? Was it Eddie or Al talking? I was able to clear this up by reading the story out loud. I think this is an interesting topic to bring up to young readers. Sometimes it is easier to understand a story if you read it outloud and are able to actually hear the words being spoken. It’s almost like being read a story.  I really like the over all theme of the story that is stated on the last page of the book “Paradise lost is sometimes Heaven found.” I think it’s a great theme to show students. It’s important that they begin to think that the grass is not always greener on the other side, and that they should be happy for all of the things that they have. I thought the story was a bit choppy for example when Al fell into the ocean and almost drowned.  I understand that Yorinks was trying to show that Al would have lost so much by taking off and going to this new paradise even his best friend Eddie, however this just didn’t flow for me. The pictures were really fun to look at, very colorful. I love how Egielski shows us the kitchen from a cross section so we can see what is outside the door. I think this is a fun book for students to read and I would like to have it on my shelf for an early finisher read, however I do not believe that I would use it to teach any specific lesson in my classroom.