“Thursday was a day much like any other for Jesse. Trains and dinosaurs. Dinosaurs and trains.” In a brisk, bright solo debut, Gurney combines these two near-universal obsessions; just as Jesse is getting ready for bed, a huge spiked tail extends through the window, and the call comes: “ALL ABOARD!” Who could resist? Off Jesse hies on a train filled with enormous dinos of diverse, recognizable sorts, all sporting a range of human attire from business suits to blue jeans. The train is derailed when everyone rushes to one side to view an exploding volcano, but with Jesse’s help, it’s soon back on track, steaming bedroom-wards with a Tyrannosaurus engineer perched atop the boiler. The author gives his towering prehistoric passengers a friendly look, and depicts them with a crisp precision enhanced by white or plain-colored backgrounds. Here’s a train that will never want for pajama-clad passengers—no ticket required. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-029245-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With its dazzling colors and big, simple, paper collage forms, this may draw fans of Byron Barton’s Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs (1989) and Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones (1990), but it’s strictly an also-ran. Between a lame, large-type rhyme at the top and several lines of commentary in smaller type below each scene, Barner (Fish Wish, 2000, etc.) alternates skeletal and fleshed-out portraits of five popular dinosaurs. Problem is that the skeleton paired with Spinosaurus belongs to some other (unspecified) creature, and—even novice dino fans will puzzle over this one—all of the T. Rexes have flat, plant-eater teeth. Also, Barner will leave most readers none the wiser by rightly noting that some dinosaurs had hips like birds, and some like lizards, but neither showing nor explaining the difference. The design wins no points either; background colors are so saturated that some blocks of text are indistinct, and the “Dino-meter” at the end is not a measurement chart (that appears on the previous spread), but a table of general facts. Give this one a miss. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8118-3158-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001
An introduction to dinosaurs for younger readers, this Stage 1 “Lets-Read-And-Find-Out Science” title describes big and little dinosaurs from Diplodocus, “one of the biggest,” to Mussaurus, only as large as a baby-bird when hatched. More recent giants, like Seismosaurus, Argentinosaurus, and Brachiosaurus are also introduced in the same low-keyed fashion. The author explains the latter may have weighed as much as 16 elephants, and the illustrator obligingly shows a tower of 16 elephants. The author provides size comparisons throughout; for example, Giganotosaurus had teeth “the size of a banana,” and Seismosaurus at 130 feet long was, “longer than 4 school buses.” Soft chalk drawings in buff, blue, and purple, show the kinder gentler side of dinosaurs—even the meat-eaters look somewhat cuddly. The illustrator concludes with a scale drawing of the dinosaurs presented, including an elephant and a human for scale. While there is little new here, this is a non-threatening additional purchase for the dinosaur set. (Nonfiction. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-027935-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2002
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