Well designed to get the attention of younger dinophiles, this combines simple answers to simple questions with big, finely detailed portraits of 17 toothy, tough-looking examples. Some of MacLeod’s information, such as a reference to Parasaurolophus’s “long, low call,” may be iffy, and she answers the question, “Could dinosaurs fly?” with a bait-and-switch discussion of flying reptiles, but the vivid writing—“Tyrannosaurus was one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs. Its teeth were as long as bananas! Tyrannosaurus was always hungry. It would even eat smelly dead dinosaurs”—is as riveting as Sauvés’s art. A thank-you to a dinosaur expert is the only author resource noted, but a trio of Web sites and a pronunciation/translation chart of names bring this uneven crowd-pleasing primer to a strong close. (Nonfiction. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-55337-063-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
Categories: CHILDREN'S DINOSAURS & PREHISTORIC CREATURES
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A guide to better behavior—at home, on the playground, in class, and in the library.
Serving as a sort of overview for the series’ 12 previous exercises in behavior modeling, this latest outing opens with a set of badly behaving dinos, identified in an endpaper key and also inconspicuously in situ. Per series formula, these are paired to leading questions like “Does she spit out her broccoli onto the floor? / Does he shout ‘I hate meat loaf!’ while slamming the door?” (Choruses of “NO!” from young audiences are welcome.) Midway through, the tone changes (“No, dinosaurs don’t”), and good examples follow to the tune of positive declarative sentences: “They wipe up the tables and vacuum the floors. / They share all the books and they never slam doors,” etc. Teague’s customary, humongous prehistoric crew, all depicted in exact detail and with wildly flashy coloration, fill both their spreads and their human-scale scenes as their human parents—no same-sex couples but some are racially mixed, and in one the man’s the cook—join a similarly diverse set of sibs and other children in either disapprobation or approving smiles. All in all, it’s a well-tested mix of oblique and prescriptive approaches to proper behavior as well as a lighthearted way to play up the use of “please,” “thank you,” and even “I’ll help when you’re hurt.”
Formulaic but not stale…even if it does mine previous topical material rather than expand it. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-36334-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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Jack and his over-the-top, animate, orange T. Rex toy are back, this time tackling their fears of flying.
Jack and Dexter are very excited for vacation—they are going “someplace exotic called FLOR-I-DA.” But when the car stops too soon and Dexter realizes they are at the airport, even his vacation accessories can’t keep him from losing his cool; everyone knows T. Rex arms are too short for flying. But just as Dexter really starts to melt down, he gets a glimpse of Jack and realizes he needs to take care of his boy. Dexter pulls out all the stops in calming Jack, and the duo sing their song (with an airplane twist), peer out the window, and enjoy the movie and all the cookies the “nice lady” plies them with. Ward’s orange dino continues to break the fourth wall, though he’s a mite calmer than usual in this outing. The illustrations are just as laugh-out-loud funny as ever, with the toy’s expressions stealing every scene. Jack, who has brown skin, sits in a window seat next to a girl/woman who shares his coloring; across the aisle are a man and a woman with a baby who also all have brown skin. The relationships are not clear, though the text states Jack is not sitting with his parents.
Jack and Dexter have become a beloved duo, and the dino’s behavior-modeling sure goes down easily. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-4320-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Two Lions
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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