This is a picture book from the early 80s. My mom thinks it came from a mail order book club. Kids in an apartment building have amphibian pets: turtles, alligator. . . the alligator gets stuck in a tree. Balloons get him out (or got him in?). At the end the kids get a rooftop garden for their pets. Over the course of the story you see an ornate fountain being built in town.
Stump the Bookseller
New format, same book stumper solving.
The Alphapets’ ‘Albert the Absent-Minded Alligator’?
It sounds like a Stephen Kellogg book.
It’s neither of the titles mentioned above but I am so grateful to you for putting on your thinking caps! The illustrations had a lot of white on the page, not as dense as Stephen Kellogg, if that makes sense.