Nothing terribly special, but an energetic acknowledgment of the passion most tykes feel about these long-gone prehistoric...
Is there a child out there who doesn’t love dinosaurs?
Very young readers will thrill to the sight of these smiling, roly-poly, brightly colored dinosaurs of various kinds, painted in watercolors to resemble reassuringly friendly, beloved toys. With no pretense at verisimilitude or much educational enlightenment, 15 different species are depicted and labeled on the front and back endpapers, giving tiny dino lovers a very rough idea of what the creatures shown in the book probably looked like (with artistic license for the colors), the art differentiating among them to show off scientifically known attributes such as relative sizes, crests, horns, spikes, and so on. Told in very simple, rollicking verse, the text encourages vocabulary enrichment and also lends itself to animated reading, abetted by the sometimes-capitalized extra-large display type that’s used for important adjectives, nouns, and verbs. However, an adult will have to help children with the definition of the word “extinct,” depicted on the final spread featuring Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops skeletons and a wide-eyed white child in shorts and black child in a dress.
Nothing terribly special, but an energetic acknowledgment of the passion most tykes feel about these long-gone prehistoric animals. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: June 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9959-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
A snore for all but the most avid toddler paleontologists.
After busy days spent doing what dinos do, nine colorful dinosaurs happily bed down for the night protected by a loving adult dino.
Each sleepy dinosaur inhabits a fanciful environment, though it is unclear whether they are based on known information about where dinosaurs lived. There is nothing ferocious or threatening about these dinosaurs. Nor are they likely to excite young paleontologists, as the purpose of the book is to convince young children to go to sleep, just like each of the dinosaurs. The singsong-y verses don’t really work as poetry. Uneven meter makes for an awkward read-aloud experience, and forced rhymes (“Mom” and “calm”; “leaves” and “trees”) are a bit of a stretch. Similarly, touch-and-feel elements added to one of the dinosaurs on each spread feel arbitrary and are more distraction than successful additions. Even toddlers will wonder why only one of each set of dinosaurs has this tactile element. Each spread ends with a “Good night” followed by an alliterative nickname: “Dozing Diplos”; “Resting Raptors”; “Tiny Pteros”; “Snoozing Spinos.” This affectation will turn off adults with a low tolerance for cute and potentially confuse readers just beginning to learn dinosaur names.
A snore for all but the most avid toddler paleontologists. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-680105-48-3
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Who knew that turning the pages could be the best part of a book?
The concept of this picture book is simple enough: 10 birds topple, slip, and dive their way off the titular twig until there is one left. The text itself echoes familiar singsong-y children’s rhymes like “Five Little Pumpkins.” While it mostly succeeds, there are some awkward spots: “5 on a twig, there used to be more… / SNAP! Don’t say a word, now there are four.” (On each page the number is both spelled out and represented as a numeral). The real scene stealer, however, is the book’s interplay between Cole’s illustrations and the physical pages themselves. In much the same way Eric Carle utilizes the pages in The Very Hungry Caterpillar to show the little critter eating its way through the week, Cole uses pages of increasing width to show how the twig grows shorter as each bird falls and marches off purposefully with the others, all headed toward verso with pieces of twig in their beaks. Stylistically, the book is captivating. The very colorful, egg-shaped birds appear on a single, thin black line on a stark white background. This backdrop stands in powerful contrast to the book’s final two pages, which are set against black negative space, a theme echoed in the book’s feather-print endpapers. The heavy, thick pages make it easy for little hands to participate. The text takes a back seat to the playful and compelling design, which is sure to delight readers.
Who knew that turning the pages could be the best part of a book? (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72821-593-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
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