This is a children’s picture book about a janitor named Al and his dog named Eddie. They live in poor conditions and Eddie wishes for something better, a bird appears to grant their wish, but it’s not all what it appears to be

1987 Caldecott winner. The drawings start as busy, but not colorful yet. Birds get added and the beauty here for the reader and for Al (guy in the story with his dog Eddie) increases. But Al and Eddie start to bizarrely turn into birds themselves. A little strange, and scary kind-of - yet Colorful! There is a lesson here about asking for too much. But it made me wonder about all the other birds that must have come from people that never 'escaped' from the island in the sky.
I'm not so sure a kid will exclaim "again, again" when this ends...

4* art, 3* story. Net 3 per the 'again, again' test-fail

Caldecott Winner 1987
Eh.

Al and his dog, Eddie are unhappy with their life. When a large bird offers them a ticket to paradise, they jump at the chance to try somewhere new. Will this new location be everything they hope for? With pleasing pictures and charming characters, Hey Al is an entertaining read.

I love all the birds in this book. This was an unexpected story. A Janitor and his dog live in a very small 1 room apartment. Tiny. They are looking to upgrade when a huge bird sticks its head in the window and offers to take them to a new and better place.

That page, the kids were like, wow, that’s a big bird. “Are there birds that big?” “No” Anyway,

The man is taken to an island in the sky which the kids thought was very cool. It was like a bird paradise. This book was a complete surprise to me and I won’t spoil it here so go and read it. It’s a short and quick book to read.

The kids loved the surprise on the island and the conclusion. The nephew gave this 5 stars and the niece gave it 4 stars. They couldn’t figure out if the birds were evil or good and I said that maybe they are just birds and not evil or good. Anyway. This was fun and our house enjoyed it.

"Bizarre" is the word that many reviewers here seem to have used to describe "Hey, Al" and it is an apt one. I'm generally not a huge fan of 1970s-80s illustration styles, so that was already skewing my reading, but the ending is abrupt and the message 'bizarre.' Would not choose for story-time.

5/15/15
A bittersweet story about wanting to live in paradise and a man and his dog

1987

Loved it.

Cute and kind of strange.