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CLAWS AND EFFECT by Chris Kientz

CLAWS AND EFFECT

From the Secret Smithsonian Adventures series, volume 2

by Chris Kientz & Steve Hockensmith ; illustrated by Lee Nielsen

Pub Date: Oct. 18th, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-58834-567-7
Publisher: Smithsonian Books

The sudden appearance of dinosaurs in place of house pets and other modern animals sends four young time travelers scurrying back into the past in search of history-changing meddlers.

Hard on the heels of their first adventure in the past (The Wrong Wrights, 2016), Ajay (South Asian), Dominique (African-American), Eric, and Josephine (the latter two white) are dispatched by their mysterious Smithsonian contact back to the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876. There, the nefarious Barris brothers are scheming to trump the hadrosaur fossil that was historically exhibited there with live dinos transported as eggs from the deep past. Internal logic is definitely not the strong suit here, as the dinosaurs, including predators, that are suddenly roaming freely and harmlessly through suburban neighborhoods have improbably supplanted “nearly every niche of fauna” except Homo sapiens. Still, with minor effort plus help from an evidently omniscient AI and such historical figures as Alexander Graham Bell (an exhibitor at the fair) the Barrises are thwarted and our own timeline restored. Well, not quite: a closing notice about the upcoming coronation of the “King of America” points to a new mission for the young science nerds. Glassy-eyed figures mostly just stand around and talk in the neatly squared-off panels, but the action, when there is any, is easy to follow.

The infodumps aren’t heavy, but this isn’t much more than a vehicle for its tidbits of history and science.

(graphic afterword) (Graphic fantasy. 8-11)