DUCK, DUCK, DINOSAUR AND THE NOISE AT NIGHT

The loud noise that keeps waking Feather, Flap, and Spike turns out to have a decidedly un-scary origin.

Returning for a second outing (Duck, Duck, Dinosaur, 2016), three unlikely sibs—two feathered and one big, green, and scaled—have outgrown their nest and proudly moved to a nearby bower of their own. But a humongous “GRRORE!” sends first Spike and then the others fleeing into the bushes. And hardly have they settled down again than the shattering noise puts them to flight once more. Soon they’re exhausted. What to do? The popeyed younglings in Vidal’s moonlit scenes, particularly Spike, who is all massive head and feet with a nearly imperceptible body between, make droll embodiments of a common nighttime anxiety. The huge size of the rumbling roar on the page, plus the repetitive structure of George’s narrative, lightens the tone further. Deciding at last to fight noise with noise, Feather and Flap vigorously whale away at tree trunks, but Spike only nods off…and the true nature of the earth-shaking blasts are revealed. Mystery solved, the trio nestles down happily beneath dino-snores that are now shrunk to an ignorable size.

Would that all such nighttime disturbances could be so easily explained.