NEVER SHOW A T. REX A BOOK

The protagonist, a girl of color, assumes that the T. rex will fall in love with books and, consequently, will ask to learn how to read. In the protagonist’s imagination, this leads to an If You Give a Mouse a Cookie–like series of humorous situations in which the T. rex becomes a bookworm whose obsessive reading habit leads her to explore careers ranging from architecture and art to medicine. Eventually, the T. rex is elected prime minister. Her ascent to the United Kingdom’s highest office (this is a British import) results in a flurry of changes, including a campaign to educate all of her dinosaur friends. Suddenly, dinosaurs take over the entire country—and all because the protagonist showed one T. rex one book! This whimsical picture book’s illustrations burst with color, movement, and detail, and are a true delight. The wacky storyline, related in the second person, is great fun to read out loud. That said, the plot is more silly than suspenseful, and the narrative arc falls a bit flat at the end. Human characters depicted have a variety of skin tones and hair types, and the protagonist has dark skin and textured hair.