Twelve-year-old Rob Gates and his best friend Phoebe Traylor, 13, know something is amiss in their small town of Faith, Colo., when they discover Pinkie, an elderly white poodle, torn to pieces on a mountain path. The genuinely suspenseful, often wryly comical novel unfolds like a murder mystery in the friendly, youthful voice of the omniscient narrator: “The thought of some unknown bloodthirsty beast walking the streets of Faith at night, right outside their windows, was chilling and kind of great at the same time.” The mystery soon transmogrifies into a time-traveling cautionary tale—almost in the spirit of A Christmas Carol—when Rob and Phoebe meet “the last synapsid,” a doglike, tusked diictodon with an English accent who physically transports them to their past, present and future in hopes of convincing them to help him save the Earth. Mason effectively weaves emotionally resonant stories of seventh-grade angst (school teasing, absent fathers, mother conflicts and frissons of romance) with death-defying, planet-saving hijinks involving fanged, sometimes malodorous Permian-era beasts—not an easy feat. (Science fiction. 11 & up)
Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-73581-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2009
O’Brien celebrates 14 prehistoric monsters by presenting each with a modern object or a human, thereby giving readers information about the size of these giants. Dinosaurs, in full-color and full-snarl, dominate the double-page layouts as they frolic and menace an airplane, fire truck, tank, automobile, and assorted people. For every creature, O’Brien provides the name, its meaning, and a brief line of text. Three of the creatures presented are not dinosaurs at all—Quetzalcoatlus, a pterosaur, Phobosuchus, a relative of the crocodiles, and Dinichthys, a bony fish—which the author mentions in the back matter. The illustrations are not drawn to scale, e.g., if Spinosaurus is really 49 feet long, as the text indicates, the car it is shown next to would appear to be 30 feet long. Readers may have to puzzle over a few scenes, but will enjoy browsing through this book, from the dramatic eyeball view of a toothy Tyrannosaurus rex on the cover to the final head-on glare from a Triceratops. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-5738-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The utterly winsome Sammy (and his crabby, TV-narcotized sister) is featured in a fine little story from Whybrow (The Snow King, p. 806, etc.) about the pleasures of friends who happen to be of a different species. Up in the attic with his grandmother, Sammy comes across a box full of old dinosaur toys. He shuttles the box downstairs, doctors the dinosaurs that need doctoring, bathes and buffs them all, and then, next day, trundles to the library to discover their names. While this is going on, captured in handsome pen-and-wash artwork, the beasts shuffle about, but only to Sammy’s knowledge. When every one of them is properly bestowed with a name—anchisaurus, brontosaurus, scelidosaurus, etc.—the dinosaurs say, ‘’ ‘Thank you, Sammy.’ They said it very quietly, but just loud enough for Sammy to hear.” Now fast friends, they nonetheless become separated when Sammy inadvertently leaves them on the train. Sammy is deeply unhappy; he inquires after them at the station, but the “Lost and Found” man says, “How do we know they are your dinosaurs?” A blind-identification test confirms that fact: ‘’ ‘All correct!’ said the man. ‘These are definitely your dinosaurs! Definitely!’ ‘’ Quietly, the dinosaurs concur: ‘’ ‘You’re definitely our Sammy. Definitely!’ ‘’ This is a beautiful, cheering story full of offbeat charm. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30207-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
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