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
Evergreen of message, for all its formulaic presentation being set in stone.
A crash course in dino-manners.
Running along accustomed tracks, the latest in this long-running series opens with a set of rhymed rhetorical questions—“How does a dinosaur / learn to be kind? // Does he roar / about everything / that’s on his mind? // Does he ride his bike fast, / making other bikes fall? / Does he then turn around / and just laugh at them all?”—and then switches midcourse with a big “NO!!!” to take a prescriptive tack: “A dinosaur knows / how to be very kind, / and always keeps other / folks firmly in mind.” Teague as usual supplies a cast of specifically identified but wildly outsized and dramatically patterned dinosaurs modeling both mischievous and proper behavior with a multiracial and multigenerational cast of diminutive humans. By specifically highlighting the good feelings that consideration for others brings, this outing sets itself apart, if only by a hair, from previous entries with the same drift, such as How Do Dinosaurs Show Good Manners? (2020), How Do Dinosaurs Play With Their Friends? (2006), and so on. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Evergreen of message, for all its formulaic presentation being set in stone. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-338-82720-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
Safe to say it’s the only dinosaur-poop–themed Christmas book readers will ever need.
Santa delivers a naughty boy his comeuppance in this yuck- and yuk-filled Christmas book.
Santa is appalled at the length of greedy Danny’s list—especially since the lad already has a “mountain of toys.” Santa decides, “I’ll leave him a present, / But this year his present might just be unpleasant.” After hearing a clatter, Danny rushes to see a “GIGANTIC egg” dwarfing the Christmas tree. It promptly hatches a dinosaur that sets to devouring everything, and everyone, in sight. Danny watches, horrified, as it eats his grandmother, his parents, and their whole house. The comical, rhyming text’s tone is light and is supported by the cartoon digital art, which shows a rotund, house-sized dinosaur on the former site of Danny’s home. Bereft, the boy realizes “it wasn’t the house or the presents he missed; / Without family, Christmas just didn’t exist.” Lucky for him, though perhaps not for squeamish readers, the dinosaur’s overindulgence leads to two spreads of voluminous defecation, with Danny’s family, the house’s contents, Santa and reindeer, and more all sailing “from the dinosaur’s butt” on a “massive WHOOOOOOSH” of liquid, brown poop. All characters are unscathed, and cleanup happens mercifully quickly, though readers may feel a bit ill at the sight of piles and rivulets of poop still decking the halls. Santa, Danny, and his family all present white.
Safe to say it’s the only dinosaur-poop–themed Christmas book readers will ever need. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9872-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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