An arresting prehistoric primer, with a charmer of a twist ending.
What fearsome creature has hatched from that innocuous-looking egg?
Juxtaposing artfully clipped stock photos with dino images, this tale invites young viewers to play a cleverly presented guessing game. Could the beady eye peeking out through a hole in the cracked shell belong to a…velociraptor? Do tracks leading away from bits of the broken eggshell mean that there’s a dinosaur loose in the book? Glimpses of “razor-sharp claws” and “bone-crushing jaws” lead to further speculation. It might be a T. Rex, “with a bite that could crush a car!” Or maybe a Utahraptor—“They used their claws as hooks to snare their prey, pin them down, and eat them alive!” writes the author with winning gusto. Or could it be a Deinonychus? “Their bite was as strong as the weight of 40 bricks pressing down on you.” Savvy readers will, of course, have caught the giveaway hint in the title, and a climactic photo of a chicken fixing its glance on a hapless earthworm (“The mighty Chick-o-saurus devours his prey”) will clue in the rest. An afterword lays out the dinosaur–chicken connection in detail, from the 19th-century discovery of the prehistoric bird Archaeopteryx to that of the feathered fossil Xiaotingia in 2011.
An arresting prehistoric primer, with a charmer of a twist ending. (dinosaur pronunciation guide) (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781426376221
Page Count: 32
Publisher: National Geographic Kids
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Norma Dixon’s Lowdown on Earthworms (2005) digs deeper into the subject, but this lays fertile groundwork for budding...
Beginning readers who tunnel through this upbeat first introduction will “dig” them too.
After an opening look at several kinds of worm (including the candy sort), McCloskey drills down to the nitty-gritty on earthworms. He describes how they help soil with their digging and “poop” (“EEW!”) and presents full-body inside and outside views with labeled parts. He also answers in the worms’ collective voice such questions as “Why do you come out after the rain?” and “How big is the biggest worm in the world?” that are posed by a multiethnic cast of intent young investigators in the cartoon illustrations. A persistent but frustrated bluebird’s “Yum, yum!!” and rejected invitations to lunch offer indirect references to worms as food sources, and reproductive details are likewise limited to oblique notes that worms have big families “born from cocoons.” Single scenes mingle with short sequences of panels in pictures that are drawn on brown paper bags for an appropriately earthy look.
Norma Dixon’s Lowdown on Earthworms (2005) digs deeper into the subject, but this lays fertile groundwork for budding naturalists. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-935179-80-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
Another feather in McCloskey’s cap.
Budding naturalists who dug We Dig Worms! (2015) will, well, coo over this similarly enlightening accolade.
A curmudgeonly park visitor’s “They’re RATS with wings!” sparks spirited rejoinders from a racially diverse flock of children wearing full-body bird outfits, who swoop down to deliver a mess of pigeon facts. Along with being related to the dodo, “rock doves” fly faster than a car, mate for life, have been crossbred into all sorts of “fancies,” inspired Pablo Picasso to name his daughter “Paloma” in their honor, can be eaten (“Tastes like chicken”), and, like penguins and flamingos, create “pigeon milk” in their crops for their hatchlings. Painted on light blue art paper—“the kind,” writes McCloskey in his afterword, “used by Picasso”—expertly depicted pigeons of diverse breeds common and fancy strut their stuff, with views of the children and other wild creatures, plus occasional helpful labels, interspersed. In the chastened parkgoer’s eyes, as in those of the newly independent readers to whom this is aimed, the often maligned birds are “wonderful.” Cue a fresh set of costumed children on the final page, gearing up to set him straight on squirrels.
Another feather in McCloskey’s cap. (Graphic informational early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-935179-93-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
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