Rhoda has a problem: though she’s a newly hatched alligator in the Florida Everglades, another baby gator named Horace doesn’t like her orange and blue skin, and he bullies her.
How Rhoda overcomes being an outcast and learns to celebrate what makes her special is the plot of the new children’s book published Nov. 24 by former Fla. Gov. Bob Graham.
“I wrote this story for my grandchildren and girls and boys of their age to have them know and appreciate the magic, glory and adventures of the Everglades,” Graham, 84, told The Miami Laker.
“The story of Rhoda is to understand that minds are changeable, accepting others as they are and can be,” he said.
Readers ages 4 to 6 will delight in the vivid illustrations by artist Jay Winter Collins. Winter Collins’ drawings show the Everglades as a lively place where panthers, dragonflies, snails and lizards live in Technicolor harmony.
Parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles will love the book to read to children and not just because it’s only 10 pages long.
Themes of friendship, self-acceptance, forgiveness and compassion are easily delivered in this story.
Graham’s 11 grandchildren call him “Doodle,” and he has told Rhoda’s story to them and their friends for years, he says in the book’s acknowledgements.
Three of Graham’s granddaughters helped him turn the nighttime story into a children’s book, and he credited them with helping to capture Rhoda’s “childlike joy.”
Graham calls protecting the Everglades “the biggest problem facing the Florida Legislature in recent years.”
In the book’s afterword he said the setting for the story is meant to highlight and celebrate “just one unique treasure among many in the U.S. National Park System.”
Daniel Robert “Bob” Graham is a member of the founding family of Miami Lakes, which developed its dairy farm into a master-planned community.
Graham served in both houses of the Florida legislature and served as the state’s 38th governor, from 1979 to 1987.
From 1987 to 2005, he was a U.S. Senator from Florida.
He helped found the Democratic Leadership Council and chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Graham ran for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination but withdrew from the race before the first primaries.
Graham and his wife Adele have four adult daughters.
The couple spend time in Miami Lakes as well as in Gainesville.
In that city, he can be found at the Bob Graham Center for Public Service at his alma mater, The University of Florida; he also graduated from Harvard Law School.
The Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes for grades Pre-K - 8, is named for him.
The environment and Florida’s Everglades have been lifelong interests of Graham’s; he served as co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.
Graham was also a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the CIA External Advisory Board and chaired the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.
“RHODA The Alligator” is Graham’s fifth book and his first in the children’s literature genre.
In 2011, Graham published a novel, the thriller “The Keys to the Kingdom.”
He also wrote three nonfiction books: “Workdays: Finding Florida on the Job;” “Intelligence Matters” and “America: The Owner’s Manual.”