Alligator in the Basement

Robert Keeshan — Captain Kangaroo himself — delivers a warm and genuinely clever picture book built around a simple, memorable idea: the alligator in the basement is yours. When a boy visiting his grandparents discovers that an alligator lives in the washing machine, Granddad's gentle advice is that imagination belongs to the child who imagines it, and they have the power to tell it what to do. Publisher's Weekly noted the book's aim to give children agency over their own creative inner worlds, and it succeeds on that front with lightness and humor. The grandparent relationship is affectionate and affirming. The main caveat is modest: this is a brief, simple picture book with limited critical legacy beyond its initial run, and it may not satisfy more sophisticated picture-book readers. But as a celebration of childhood imagination, it earns its place.