Cinematically, lightning strikes an ecclesiastical-looking building even before this wordless book's title spread, on which a bird flies into its barrel-vaulted hall. But this is no church: the figures that top these columns are Mesozoic, not medieval, while the dinosaur skeletons in the otherwise empty space suggest a surreal museum. As the bird flies from the ancient bones toward their shadows, cast by the lightning, it's transported (in an arresting visual segue) to the dinosaurs' era. Several entrancing spreads later, it flutters away from a mild-eyed giant to confront one less benign. Snapped up, it flutters down a gullet- -and out past airy ribs, into the museum. Rohmann gives the excursion compelling immediacy by using intense colors and arresting points of view. In his beautifully composed spreads, the museum's glowering sandstone hues are imaginatively played off against the early world's innocent sky blue and vegetable green, the tiny, lithe bird against the lumbering primeval giants, flesh against bone, shadow against substance. A splendid debut. (Picture book. 4-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-517-59598-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1994
This anachronistic entry about a popular duo in the Ready-to- Read series addresses gender issues for newly independent readers. Second-grader Pinky is bullied by third-grader Kevin for his friendship with a girl, best buddy Rex, and for his love of the color pink. Kevin warns Anthony not to play with Pinky, or ``You might turn into a girl, too!'' Pinky, whose real name is William, is upset enough that he asks to be called Billy and decides to end his friendship with Rex, too. An elderly neighbor, Mrs. Morgan, tells him her own childhood tale of lost identity, and Pinky finds the courage to stare Kevin down. Howe (Pinky and Rex and the New Baby, 1993, etc.) sends a positive message to children to be themselves, an idea sensitively illustrated by Sweet. But Mrs. Morgan's monologues are laced with preachiness and compassion that seem more convenient than real. Meanwhile, Rex is only a marginal figure, barely sketched into the tale; all her behavior is described rather than shown. (Fiction. 6- 8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-689-80021-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996
Washburn’s illustrations take a nonthreatening to the subject, casting the rosy-toned dinosaurs as friendly rather than...
A highly accessible entry in the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series that takes a look at baby dinosaurs, primarily maiasaurs and oviraptors.
Zoehfeld (How Mountains are Made, 1995, etc.) explains how the current information on the peaceful, lizard-like dinosaurs who sipped from streams over 70 million years ago has been extrapolated from fossils, and that the rest is surmised from studying reptile and bird behavior and habits, which provide scientists with clues as to the nesting, nurturing of, and lives of baby dinosaurs. Hatching from small, oval eggs, the newborns ate berries while one member guarded the nest from meat-eating, nest-raiding predators. The author speculates as to the role of fossilized plants that covered the eggs of the maiasaurs and what the discovery of oviraptor skeletons may reveal about the feeding of the young.
Washburn’s illustrations take a nonthreatening to the subject, casting the rosy-toned dinosaurs as friendly rather than imposing. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-027141-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
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