Big Al leaves the swamp and tries to pass as human—with mixed results.

Season 1

Big Al is a crocodile with an attitude, an enormous appetite, and one simple goal: feed his belly beast. But after a mysterious visitor enters the swamp, he is soon lifted out of a life of muck and mud, into a bewildering human world filled with trucks, motels, mysterious scents, and creatures he can’t for the life of him figure out. Funny, heartfelt, and occasionally chaotic, these opening chapters follow Big Al’s first days beyond the swamp as he learns that kindness can come from unexpected places. And that not every human is as dangerous as they seem.

But escaping the marsh is only the beginning. Beyond the chapbook lies the sprawling city of Ankerton, where Big Al’s search for food grows into a much larger adventure involving identity, friendship, critical thinking, and a human world stranger than anything this croc could have imagined. This cooked croc leaves grins crooked.

Mudwater Mutters is a companion narration in the format of a podcast that not only has the author narrating the book, but also features in-world ads for the slightly off-kilter city of Ankerton in Seasons 2-4.

H. Jacob Buller writes stories from the eternally snowscaped prairies of Manitoba, where red-wing blackbirds gossip, herons disappear mysteriously, and the ditches might hide a wandering crocodile.