“I loved this book so much.” - Susin Nielsen
“A book to treasure and share across generations.” - David Chariandy
Girl Versus Crocodile
Beatrice and Croc Harry is a novel for children and adults about a young girl who awakens alone with amnesia in a massive forest, where every conceivable fish, bird, mammal and reptile coexist. She has no idea who she is. She doesn’t even know her last name, or that she is Black.
Beatrice forms a tempestuous friendship with a natural predator — a 700-pound, fast-talking crocodile named Harry. Perhaps he can help assemble her lost identity. Together, they embark on a journey that they hope will lead Beatrice home, even though she doesn’t know what or where home is.
Using playful language and a comic touch, the novel explores themes of identity, the courage to confront injustice, and the possibility that perpetrators of injustice and those who have been harmed might find themselves in a place of healing and respect.
“A journey of epic proportions.” - Nadia L. Hohn
“Who in tarnation are you?”
Beatrice was not entirely sure if she was dead. She raised two fingers to her lips and felt her own warm breath. She appeared to be awakening from a deep, dark dream in which she had either died or come close to it. As she opened her eyes and studied her circumstances, the facts confirmed that she was alive. She didn't know much, but she knew this: her name was indeed Beatrice. It had a certain flow. Three syllables and never just two, thank you very much.
Beatrice was lying in a single bed in a one-room, wooden cabin. She had never slept in that bed before or seen the cabin. She had no idea what awaited her outside, except an incessant woodpecker. Eight pecks in a row. Pause. Another eight pecks. And again. And again. There was nothing like a woodpecker to get her attention. It sounded like an electric hammer in the hands of a toddler. The message, being banged right into the grey matter of her brain, seemed to say, I am here and you are there and if you don't get up this very second I am going to tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap until you go completely mad. Beatrice swung her legs off the bed. Straight ahead: three rows of shelves, stacked with books. To her left: a bedside table, and on it, two more books. On top was a manual with meticulous purple handwriting on the cover. It said: Survival Tips, Argilia Forest, 2090. Beatrice turned to the first page, which consisted of a simple message in purple ink: Outhouse is outside. Climb down the ladder and head to the river.