Dinosaurs have feelings too.
Kind treatment reforms a prehistoric bully in this dino bromance from Japan.
Still looking a lot like a saw-backed Godzilla in Miyanishi’s high-contrast orange-and-blue illustrations, the T. Rex first met (on this side of the Pacific) in You Look Yummy! (2015) falls off a cliff into the ocean while meanly chasing a herd of little styracosauruses. Just as he’s about to drown, along comes flippered, long-necked Elasmosaurus to boost him out of the water and, like a nurturing mammal, tenderly lick his injuries clean. As the two become fast friends, not only does T. Rex guiltily deny to Elasmosaurus that he’s a bully, he actually changes his behavior toward former victims too. When Elasmosaurus is beaten up (a “nasty dinosaur in the ocean” bites him all over), Tyrannosaurus ultimately effects a rescue in return. Confessing his true nature, he then makes a promise: “I will take care of you and help you get better. And we will be together forever and ever.” “Forever and ever,” Elasmosaurus affirms, as the two embrace tightly in the closing scene. Such demonstrativeness in male-male friendships is decidedly uncommon in American literature; to see the sentiment in a book with such muscular illustrations (and protagonists) is something of a cognitive disconnect that may cause more than one reader to reconsider assumptions.
Dinosaurs have feelings too. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: June 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-940842-10-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Museyon
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
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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