Purse and Pizza Activity and “The Lady with the Alligator Purse” Book Review

by Haley Bono

Here is another favorite children's book, “The Lady with the Alligator Purse” by Mary Ann Hoberman and Nadine Bernard Westcott. This is a nonsensical book full of smiles and laughs. There is a fun tune you can “sing” this book to, if you don’t already know the song, you can just search the title in youtube, and some examples should pop up.

I’m really not sure what the “moral” of this story is, except maybe that sometimes in life you need to throw logic out the window and have some fun. In this story Tiny Tim “eats the soap” and his mom calls the Doctor, Nurse, and of course, the Lady with the Alligator Purse. The Doctor and Nurse both offer medicine as a solution for poor little Tiny Tim, but the Lady with Alligator Purse pulls out pizza from her bag. They all have a wonderful pizza party, and in the end Tiny Tim is just fine.

This book is a classic and should be easy to find. Please try to support your local bookstore first. If you are having trouble finding this book, you can click here. to purchase this book from Amazon.

Here is a fun activity where kids can make their own alligator purse with some pizza. As your little one’s do this activity you could ask them what some of their favorite foods are. Or you could ask what some of their favorite pizza toppings are?

Supplies:

Free Alligator Purse Template (free link at the end of this post), something to color with, scissors, glue stick. Optional: blank piece of paper.

Directions:

1. Color the alligator, and the pizza on the template page. Be careful if you are using crayons and try not to color anywhere where it says “glue” since glue doesn’t like to stick on the waxy surface crayons leave behind.
2. Cut where directed around the alligator, pizza, and the back of the alligator purse. Optional: you can cut the “strap” of the purse out if you would like, but it isn’t necessary.
3. Glue where directed on the template, and let dry.
4. Fold the pizza in half. I should resemble a pizza box. Now you can slip the pizza into the alligator purse.

Different Variations:

• If you would like to build on this activity you can give your little ones a blank piece of paper and ask “What would you put into your alligator purse?” Let the kids draw and cut out whatever they would like to slip into their alligator purse. Read the book with them again, only instead of saying “pizza!” say whatever it is that they decided to put into their purse.