Hey, Al | 
 enlarge | Author: Arthur Yorinks
Creator: Richard Egielski
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Category: Book
List Price: $6.95
Buy Used: $0.73
You Save: $6.22 (89%)
New (39) Used (40) Collectible (2) from $0.73
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 168857
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 32
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 8.8 x 0.5
ISBN: 0374429855
EAN: 9780374429850
ASIN: 0374429855
Publication Date: May 1, 1989
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
The plot of this book, for 4-year-olds and up, involves the travails of Al, a janitor who lives in a dingy apartment on Manhattan's West Side with his dog Eddie. One day, a funny-looking bird sticks its huge head through Al's bathroom window and proposes a journey to a terrific place where there are "no worries" and "no cares." Al agrees and takes Eddie with him. What the two experience is paradise--butterflies, wildflowers, chirping birds and cool streams--but it soon gives way to the uncertainties of being away from home, and a moral: that home is where the heart is. This sharp, wry and tender story, which won the 1987 Caldecott Medal, marks Yorinks' and Egielski's fourth highly praised collaborative work.
Product Description
A city janitor and his treasured canine companion are transported by a large colorful bird to an island in the sky, where their comfortable paradise existence threatens to turn them into birds as well.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Classical allusions March 6, 2006
We read this after having read Homer's Odyssey together. Yorinks draws from it heavily, referencing the Lotus Eaters as well as other tales. My daughter also felt there was a connection to the Garden of Eden story.
This is also a good follow-up to a visit to the zoo or an aviary. DD wanted to identify all of the different bird species depicted in the illustrations.
 contintment is virtue February 7, 2006
There is a good lesson for young and old alike to be found in this story, "the grass is always greener on the other side". I really enjoyed this book I thought the author was very in tune to the audience in which he was writing to. This was ilistrated in the vivid color and the cheractors he chose as well to tell his story. When Al's dog is tired of their drab life he convinces Al to make a change, and for a while it seemed to be paradise, accept the longer they stayed there the more they found themselves changeing into something they didn't want to be.
Hey yourself! July 26, 2004
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was eight years old when this book came out in 1986. Before I even knew that this book existed I used to play a great game with my fellow kidlets. Everyone got onto the bed and someone below the bed was a huge alligator named Al. The goal was to stick your head over the side of the bed and yell, "Hey, Al!", and avoid getting grabbed. When I saw the book, "Hey, Al", I was disappointed to find that there weren't any alligators involved. The similarities to my favorite game were limited, but there was one thing that was the same. That heart stopping feeling you got when you stuck your head over the side, not knowing what you'd find or when you'd get grabbed... that's the feeling you get after reading, "Hey, Al".
Al's just your normal janitor living with his dog in a one room apartment in New York. As the book says, he's, "a nice man, a quiet man, a janitor". Eddie, Al's dog and partner, is fed up with their life at the moment but there isn't much the two can do about it. One day, while Al's shaving in the bathroom, a huge blue bird sticks its head in the window. The bird promises that if Al merely comes with him he'll find a place without any worries and cares. The next day, Al and Eddie wait patiently in the bathroom and the bird arrives to fly them up up up to an island in the sky. Once there the two eat and drink and swim and sunbathe all day. It's a little paradise. But this world starts to go terribly terribly wrong when Al wakes up one day to find that both he and Eddie are turning into birds. Suddenly the honeymoon is over and the two friends must fly for their lives back to their little apartment in New York to return to normal. In the end, the two friends are a little wiser and a little happier with their lot.
Author Arthur Yorinks and illustrator Richard Egielski were great fans of the weird dream-like picture book. I don't know if you're at all familiar with their similarly peculiar and far more odd "Louis the Fish", but "Hey, Al" is written (and drawn) in very much the same vein. I was slightly disturbed by "Hey, Al" when I read it as a kid and that feeling has persisted in the eighteen years since I last looked at it. I think illustrator Egielski gives a nod to the otherworldly island paradise Al and Eddie end up in when he draws into his scene of birds welcoming the visitors a dodo with human hands and a walking stick (much as you would find in the original Tenniel drawing of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"). Somehow the combination of bright colors and an ever so slightly off narrative gives the book that otherworldly quality that made it so unique when it was first published. The range of birds available on the island (everything from ostriches and pink flamingos to penguins and puffins) help as well.
Kids will love speculating whether or not the other birds on the sunny isle were once human too. What is clear in the end, however, is the small still moral that staying true to one's self is better than all the riches in the world. The final line in the book is the undeniable statement, "Paradise lost is sometimes Heaven found". A little light philosophy for a toddler's growing mind.
Great book for teaching values! March 18, 2004
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
"Paradise lost is sometimes heaven found" is the closing line in Hey, Al, a wonderful book that has a timeless moral for both kids and adults. Al is a janitor who is not happy with how is life is going. He lives in a room with his dog, Eddie, who is also not happy with his situation. One day a bird appears at the window promising to bring them to a better place, "no worries, no cares". Of course, something that sounds that good probably isn't.This book is definitely an entertaining story. The pictures are colorful and very detailed. Kids will love looking at them and pointing out all the different birds and laugh at the silly transformation that Al and Eddie go through. I think they will also get the story, that what you have is usually better than what you lust for. Everyone, at some point in their life, dreams about something better. This book is a great reality check for us, giving a serious message in a kid's book.
This book is fun to read!! June 5, 2003
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Hey, Al, by Arthur Yorinks and Richard Egielski, is a story about Al and Eddie, the dog, going to paradise.
Al, a nice, quiet, janitor, lived in a small but very neat apartment on the West Side of New York City with his faithful dog, Eddie. They were always struggling. Eddie hoped for a house with a backyard.
All that changed one morning when Al was startled by a huge bird said, "tommorow I will bring you to paradise." The bird offers Al and Eddie a change. The next morning, both are ready and waiting in the bathroom.the bird carries them to the paradise.
The theme of this story is that "your own home is the best place to be." Al and Eddie were much happier in their own house than in the paradise. Everyone will like this book, because it has beautiful pictures and ideas.
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