CHICK & T

A dinosaur joins a family of chickens.

A T. Rex egg suddenly hatches in a random house, alone. All by himself, T teethes, grows, feels lonely, and wants to find a family. Some willing chickens (according to research, his closest living relatives) adopt him, but his size makes fitting in at home and at school impossible. His new sister, Chick, rolls her eyes when T breaks the backyard slide and proves too big for his bed. T longs to befriend her, but she’s standoffish—until she oversleeps one morning, and T offers to let her ride him to school. The other chickens at school quickly want a ride, and T’s suddenly the most popular student. A final spread offers enthusiastically presented facts on T. Rex height, weight, scales, and more. Hernando’s clear illustrations are dominated by T’s lime-green mass; his bulbous head and large but unthreatening teeth and spine spikes feature prominently throughout. Though the fish-out-of-water premise results in some appealing visual gags (T looming over the other students in class or making a mess at the dinner table), the resolution feels rather abrupt and the happy ending unearned—the self-serving Chick makes T feel welcome only after she finds him useful.

In the huge herd of dinosaur books, this one is likely to get trampled.