“Think about Velociraptor when you see birds run across the grass.” But look elsewhere for visuals that are out of the...
A colorful gallery of dinos and their relatives, made from paint-sprayed paper collage and paired to questions and comments in large type.
Originally published overseas as Big Noisy Book of Dinosaurs (2009), this version features rearranged illustrations and an abridged text that, for all its short, simple sentences, is still well-stocked with mouth-filling monikers. "Mamenchiasaurus was a huge plant eater.” “Carcharodontosaurus was a giant meat eater.” “Eoraptor was about the same size as a child like you.” The information is all standard-issue. Along with accurately indicating that pterosaurs and certain sea creatures were reptiles but not true dinosaurs, the author provides requisite explanations of how dinosaurs went extinct, how some became fossils, and how some had birdlike characteristics. The art just comes along for the ride. Colors look dull, animals occasionally look at one another but seldom interact, and poses are nearly all side views. There is little to no sense of scale. An image of Eoraptor is larger than the Brachiosaurus on the opposite page, a pile of poop nearly rivals an adjacent Diplodocus for bulk, and because Teckentrup (or the designer) fits multiple full or near-full bodies on each spread at various removes and with little detail, the giant dinos often don’t look all that big.
“Think about Velociraptor when you see birds run across the grass.” But look elsewhere for visuals that are out of the ordinary. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-910126-52-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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
Formulaic but not stale…even if it does mine previous topical material rather than expand it.
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. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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