This should be a hit.
Little ones can move the wings, feet, tail, or mouth of three different dinosaurs and one pterosaur via sliding panels.
On one double-page spread, young readers meet a friendly stegosaurus as the text reads “Stegosaurus / Stomp! Clomp! / Go its great big feet.” A one-sentence fact on the species (“Stegosaurus was as long as a bus!”) floats in a smaller font on the page, and a pronunciation guide in parentheses sits in the bottom-left corner. The sounds “Stomp! Clomp!” are printed again near the arrow directing little digits to an embedded panel to push up or pull down, making the creature stomp and clomp its feet. This pattern is repeated three more times on other spreads featuring a pterodactyl with wings to flap, a diplodocus with a tail to swish, and a tyrannosaurus rex with jaws to snap. Lodge’s art is pleasingly flat and cartoony, employing simple shapes and patterns, googly eyes, bold colors, and playful smiles. While the book is slight on page count, the thick pages, sturdy panels, and easy-to-manipulate sliding mechanisms mean the interactive features are likely to survive several hours of robust play. Even though the image is later repeated on the inner pages, the T. rex on the cover steals the show with eyelids and mouth that shift in a playfully menacing manner with each slide of the panel.
This should be a hit. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-54781-8
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dinosaur fans will happily engage, but true budding paleontologists will quickly grow out of it
Bright colors and dramatic scenes will attract young dinosaur lovers to this board book with shaped, oversized flaps that hide five popular dinosaurs.
The predictable format lends itself to use with young toddlers. An unnamed dinosaur on the left side of each spread asks a question. When a large flap on the facing page is turned, an extinct creature—there are five in all—is revealed. A sound or behavior one might imagine could be characteristic of that animal is repeated in a larger font. A “happy triceratops” stomps; a “giant diplodocus” munches; a “sleepy stegosaurus” snores; a “flying pterodactyl” squawks; a “mighty Tyrannosaurus rex” (and hatchlings) roars. (Only “Tyrannosaurus” is captitalized, presumably as its moniker includes the full Latin name.) Curiously, the triceratops is described as “happy” with no evidence of that emotion beyond a slight, anthropomorphized smile. If it is happy, why is it stomping? Clever toddlers will quickly learn that the flap in the slightly raised frame on the right-hand page is almost always hinged at the bottom. A second flap opens to the side on the T. rex spread to reveal three baby tyrannosauruses in their eggshells. However, this one is quite difficult to manipulate and easily torn.
Dinosaur fans will happily engage, but true budding paleontologists will quickly grow out of it . (Board book. 2-3)Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9934-5
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The minor flaw in the construction makes this a nonessential purchase for all but the most dino-happy tots
The combination of hide-and-seek and sliders to manipulate with fanciful dinosaurs should guarantee an audience for this board book.
Beginning with the front cover, a smiling green dinosaur is hiding in plain sight in every picture: in a window, behind a sofa, in the shower, in bed, in the freezer. On each page the titular refrain is repeated, followed by a question that hints at where the dinosaur will be found. It doesn’t hurt success that the dinosaur doesn’t really fit in its hiding places. Toddlers will quickly find the clearly marked slider that confirms their guess, sliding the head of one out from behind the sofa or pulling back the shower curtain to reveal another. The book ends with a final affirmation: “I knew I saw a dinosaur. There it is!” The slider on that page makes the dinosaur’s head nod up and down. The format is repeated in the companion volume, I Thought I Saw a Lion, with the lion hiding in a restaurant, costume shop, library, and beauty shop. Digitally produced drawings in a retro palette are reminiscent of mid-20th-century printmaking and folk art. Except for a brown-skinned waiter and a brown-skinned customer getting her straight brown hair cut in the beauty parlor in Lion, the people in both books are white. Unfortunately, the sliders have a tendency to become quite loose after repeat readings and slide when the book is merely tilted.
The minor flaw in the construction makes this a nonessential purchase for all but the most dino-happy tots . (Board book. 2-3)Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9945-1
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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