An engaging suggestion that hints of the past are there for the finding, if we will but look.
A dinosaur and a curious young child make a connection over millions of years.
The author of 2020’s clever and engaging Old Rock (Is Not Boring) tackles the theme of geologic time from another angle. “I used to live here,” says her toothy theropod narrator, recalling lush and leafy prehistoric forests and encounters with other dinosaurs (“most were delicious”). But “a lot has changed,” beginning with a certain falling meteor and continuing through successive ages of oceans, mountain building, and ice to, at last, a rustic yard where a child plays, burbles with questions about nature, and finds a fossil footprint and a large tooth. “I will wait,” the patient predator concludes, “for my story to become part of your story.” And indeed, those discoveries spark further questions and sustained interest, until the child returns to the site just a little later (relatively speaking) as a grown-up paleontologist to dig out the skeleton buried beneath. In a final scene, the paleontologist presents it fully reassembled to a diverse and fascinated group of museum visitors. In Pilutti’s sweet and serene illustrations, the tan-skinned child appears to be biracial (one parent is brown-skinned, while the other is light-skinned). A closing note about fossils and the scientists who find them ends with an enticing invitation to join in dinosaur research and study—beginning, of course, with birds.
An engaging suggestion that hints of the past are there for the finding, if we will but look. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9780593620588
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Eye candy and intellectual nourishment alike for newly independent readers.
A classic informational early reader gets a substantial, long-overdue update.
Kirkus criticized the 1985 edition for conveying outdated and misleading information—chivalrously leaving the stodgy colored-pencil illustrations unmentioned. All of that has been addressed here. Revised by the late Milton’s brother Kent, the text highlights or at least names over a dozen dinos, from the diminutive Citipati to the humongous Argentinosaurus, “as big as a house, longer than three buses, and as heavy as thirteen elephants!” Prehistoric contemporaries that were not dinosaurs also get nods, as do modern paleontology, the great extinction and the continued survival of birds: “So the dinosaur days go on.” Tempesta’s cover painting of a brightly patterned Triceratops being attacked by a T. Rex with a feathery spinal fringe opens a suite of equally dramatic group and single portraits. They feature mottled monsters viewed from low angles to accentuate their massiveness and reflect current thinking about feathers and coloration.
Eye candy and intellectual nourishment alike for newly independent readers. (Informational early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: July 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-37923-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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