Hilarious, emotionally poignant, and just a little bit sassy.
A feisty girl learns to merge the awesome parts of being a T. Rex with the great parts of being human, inspiring friends and her mean big brother to do the same.
It all starts when Sal’s teacher asks the students what they want to be when they grow up. Clad in a T. Rex shirt and shoes, Sal’s answer is a Tyrannosaurus rex, “because obviously.” Sal offers some amazing facts about T. Rexes, like their awesome teeth and constant roaring, contrasted with sad facts about Sals, including a “tiny, often ignored” body. Sal’s brother says it’s impossible for her to be a T. Rex, but she is determined. She does become a T. Rex, and she finds that it’s “amazing!” Her guide to being a T. Rex includes: “Be super fierce,” “don’t be afraid of anything,” and “do whatever you want all the time!” But she discovers that humans aren’t fond of T. Rex behavior, and after all, there are a few aspects of being human that she misses. So she figures out how to be “an ultimate dino/human hybrid” who is “tough yet kind” and “awesome yet approachable,” with super strength “inside and out” and an “amazing roar.” Brown-skinned Sal is engaging from Page 1, and the comic-style drawings and hand-lettering make her story as dynamic as she is. Readers will enjoy her antics and topsy-turvy relationships again and again.
Hilarious, emotionally poignant, and just a little bit sassy. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-18624-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Affirmation that you can have dreams the size of a prehistoric flying reptile.
It is possible to be whatever you want.
When his teacher tells students they can be anything they want, Tommy announces his ambition: to be a pterodactyl. Unsurprisingly, classmates jeer. Tommy’s sure a pterodactyl’s diet of live fish would be an improvement over cafeteria fare; living in a cave in a cliff overlooking the sea where no one could visit him sounds ideal; and, as he explains to the bus driver, people would pay him, as a pterodactyl, not to pick them up and fly them places. Kids on the bus tease him mercilessly. When Tommy arrives home, his dad listens to him carefully and suggests that Tommy “live like a pterodactyl, even if on the outside you still look like Tommy.” Dad accepts and understands his son’s aspirations, and the two pretend to be pterodactyls all afternoon. The result: Because of his strongly held, actually logical beliefs and dad’s affirmation, Tommy does grow up to be a pterodactyl—sort of; kids will cheer the satisfying, makes-perfect-sense ending. This empowering story is all about having seemingly unattainable goals and being lucky enough to have supporters willing to help achieve them. Tommy’s a sweet, realistic, albeit dreamy, character; his dad, a model, caring parent. The colorful, somewhat stylized illustrations are lively and humorous. Tommy and his dad are light-skinned. Classmates and school personnel are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Affirmation that you can have dreams the size of a prehistoric flying reptile. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: July 25, 2023
ISBN: 9780593110652
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
Sturdy split pages allow readers to create their own inventive combinations from among a handful of prehistoric critters. Hard on the heels of Flip-O-Saurus (2010) drops this companion gallery, printed on durable boards and offering opportunities to mix and match body thirds of eight prehistoric mammals, plus a fish and a bird, to create such portmanteau creatures as a “Gas-Lo-Therium,” or a “Mega-Tor-Don.” The “Mam-Nyc-Nia” places the head of a mammoth next to the wings and torso of an Icaronycteris (prehistoric bat) and the hind legs of a Macrauchenia (a llamalike creature with a short trunk), to amusing effect. Drehsen adds first-person captions on the versos, which will also mix and match to produce chuckles: “Do you like my nose? It’s actually a short trunk…” “I may remind you of an ostrich, because my wings aren’t built for flying…” “My tail looks like a dolphin’s.” With but ten layers to flip, young paleontologists will run through most of the permutations in just a few minutes, but Ball’s precisely detailed ink-and-watercolor portraits of each animal formally posed against plain cream colored backdrops may provide a slightly more enduring draw. A silhouette key on the front pastedown includes a pronunciation guide and indicates scale. Overall, a pleasing complement to more substantive treatments. (Novelty nonfiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7892-1099-9
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Abbeville Kids
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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