Miyanishi’s Tyrannosaurus discovers real love is communicated through actions rather than words.
It’s winter, and the Tyrannosaurus shivers with cold and aches with hunger. Unfurling its wings, a Tapejara offers to lead the Tyrannosaurus to a green forest beyond the mountains with plenty of food. During the arduous journey, the Tyrannosaurs falls, and the flying reptile encourages him on. But when the Tyrannosaurs looks dead, the tricky Tapejara reveals its scheme and tries to eat him. Flinging the Tapejara away, the Tyrannosaurs stumbles into the forest and meets three small Homalocephales who speak a different language (represented as English words written backward). When the mighty sauropod collapses again, they come to his rescue and bring him food until he is well. The Tyrannosaurus and the three Homalocephales form a parent-child–like relationship. He even tries to teach them his language, which leads to a terrible misunderstanding with another dinosaur. Miyanishi’s trademark bold lines and colors capture the sounds, landscape, and emotions that the Tyrannosaurus experiences in this sixth book of the Japanese series. Addressing contemporary issues of sacrifice, friendship, and vulnerability through these prehistoric creatures, the book teaches readers that love can overcome barriers and differences. The humanness of the dinosaurs illuminates the power and strength the “language of the heart” can have.
A fun, heartfelt story you’ll really love. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-940842-26-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Museyon
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S DINOSAURS & PREHISTORIC CREATURES
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A guide to better behavior—at home, on the playground, in class, and in the library.
Serving as a sort of overview for the series’ 12 previous exercises in behavior modeling, this latest outing opens with a set of badly behaving dinos, identified in an endpaper key and also inconspicuously in situ. Per series formula, these are paired to leading questions like “Does she spit out her broccoli onto the floor? / Does he shout ‘I hate meat loaf!’ while slamming the door?” (Choruses of “NO!” from young audiences are welcome.) Midway through, the tone changes (“No, dinosaurs don’t”), and good examples follow to the tune of positive declarative sentences: “They wipe up the tables and vacuum the floors. / They share all the books and they never slam doors,” etc. Teague’s customary, humongous prehistoric crew, all depicted in exact detail and with wildly flashy coloration, fill both their spreads and their human-scale scenes as their human parents—no same-sex couples but some are racially mixed, and in one the man’s the cook—join a similarly diverse set of sibs and other children in either disapprobation or approving smiles. All in all, it’s a well-tested mix of oblique and prescriptive approaches to proper behavior as well as a lighthearted way to play up the use of “please,” “thank you,” and even “I’ll help when you’re hurt.”
Formulaic but not stale…even if it does mine previous topical material rather than expand it. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-36334-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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When a T. Rex gets a sore throat and cannot roar for one whole week, his self-control is tested.
William loves to roar. But not just for the sake of making loud noise. He loves hiding, sneaking, and scaring, along with roaring. He can’t help it. As the titular refrain explains: “That’s what dinosaurs do.” Oswald’s blue-dappled, toothy dino peers out from behind bushes, frightening folks in literally hair-raising fashion (even the sheep that he scares have their wool standing on end). But when the doctor tells William he must rest his voice in order to cure his sore throat, he doesn’t know how to act. He wraps a big roll of gauze around his snout and slumps through town, dejected. It’s not very much fun for William, but the townspeople are ecstatic. No more roaring! No more scaring! But will William be able to keep it up? Though moments of growth are present (William does recognize that he shouldn’t scare others), readers may be taken aback by the unabashedly unapologetic prehistoric creature’s resistance to rehabilitation. Instead of reaching for a clever way to impart wisdom, John leans heavily on the excuse, “That’s what dinosaurs do.” William is a bully, with no hope of reformation.
It’s got witty illustrations, but it paints a pretty bleak picture for society. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-234319-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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