A sparkling showcase with plenty to offer both art lovers and dinophiles.
A surrealistic vision of the Cretaceous Era, with visual puzzles for intrepid explorers to solve and surprises hidden under flaps.
Printed on creamy stock and linked by a tenuous plotline—a young woman named Dongdong, a student at a Beijing art school, receives a mysterious album from the past and falls in—the 10 gamelike “Adventures” challenge viewers on a variety of fronts. First they must traverse a thick “Forest of Illusion” and a difficult maze, then spot a cleverly hidden pterosaur in a canyon packed with dinos before moving on to other challenges, and finally escape a dark cave (printed on acetate sheets) with the help of a detachable “flashlight.” Along with depicting dozens of realistically detailed dinosaurs, Dong takes several side ventures into free-association territory, as in one spread with 18 different “eggs” whose contents, revealed by lifting flaps, range from fanciful monsters to dino-themed clouds, carvings, and pastries. Following two more pages of “egg” flaps at the end that pay droll stylistic tribute to René Magritte, Salvador Dali, Damien Hirst, Yayoi Kusama, and other modern artists, an attached booklet offers subtle visual keys to each Adventure.
A sparkling showcase with plenty to offer both art lovers and dinophiles. (Picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-945295-00-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candied Plums
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
Donald is no Douglas Florian (Dinothesaurus, 2009), but even rabid young dino fans will come away with a clearer sense of...
The author of Dino Tracks (2013) adopts a broader purview, introducing in verse 13 things we can infer about dinosaurs from fossil and other evidence.
The paleontology is better than the poetry. Singable, theoretically, to the tune of “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” each two-stanza entry takes on a single subject: “So what’s with all the feathers? Could the dinos fly? / Maybe they helped keep a dino warm and dry. / Or they might have helped to show off to a mate. / That’s the way a peacock tries to get a date!” Donald also describes the fossilized contents of “Dino Poop” and dino stomachs (“What’s For Dinner”), preserved hints about skin and coloration, sounds possibly produced by the hollow crests of duck-billed species and like topics. The poems, arranged in no apparent order, end with a mention of modern birds—followed by expansive notes (in prose) and a page of study questions. Morrison adds both helpful visual detail and plenty of action with facing views of crumpled fossils and reconstructed prehistoric scenes featuring toothy predators and heavily armored plant eaters in loud, mottled colors.
Donald is no Douglas Florian (Dinothesaurus, 2009), but even rabid young dino fans will come away with a clearer sense of what fossil clues tell us. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62855-450-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Arbordale Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Like Sam with those hot dogs, readers eager to snap up any dino-story will make quick work of this tongue-in-cheek romp.
The appearance of a live T. Rex near a fossil dig kicks off a wild round of dino-antics in this series kickoff from an Eisner Award–winning comics writer.
Hardly has young Mike donned his high-tech, solar-powered hoodie—a present from his paleontologist dad—than he’s running into Shannon, a mysterious girl wielding awesome futuristic devices, and running in panic from a hungry T. Rex he decides, in a less frantic moment, to name Sam. Secretive about her origins, Shannon enlists Mike, whom she dubs “Dino-Mike” (she herself goes by the less punchy moniker “Triceratops Shannon”), to help her steal a hot dog truck and lure the monster into a force field cage so that it can be sent back to the Cretaceous. Though ultimately successful, the mission is not only complicated by continuing interference from rascally dinosaur collector Jurassic Jeff, but capped, in a closing stunner, with unmistakable evidence that “Sam” was actually “Samantha.” Franco strews his lickety-split escapade with cartoons featuring wide-eyed figures viewed, often, from dramatic angles, leaves loose ends aplenty for sequels, and tacks on a dino-glossary and a set of T. Rex facts at the end.
Like Sam with those hot dogs, readers eager to snap up any dino-story will make quick work of this tongue-in-cheek romp. (Science fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4342-9631-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
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