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
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
Definitely has a preschooler’s number.
Dinosaurs get together to count legs, arms, wings, spikes, and more.
The rhymed tally starts off with a young dino named Rodrigo (properly identified, in the closing fact roundup, as an ankylosaurus) with “one tail he liked to swing for fun!” Along comes Sue (a T. Rex) with two arms and two pairs of claws, Stan (a triceratops) with three horns, and so on up to 10 little hatchlings of diverse species. In her prehistoric scenes Bianda depicts dinosaurs, early reptiles, and even a set of contemporaneous opossumlike mammals (and bumblebees flying into a wasps’ nest) in bright monochrome hues, with googly eyes and (for all the scales, horns, and toothy smiles on display) distinctly toddlerish looks. She also places large numerals in strategic spots and tucks in seed cones, ferns, comets, and other prehistoric items for more counting opportunities. Dinosaur counting exercises are far from an extinct or even endangered picture-book species but this is a particularly lively specimen, and aside from a few artistic liberties, the author and illustrator both take care to keep their dino facts straight.
Definitely has a preschooler’s number. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1281-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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