WYLIE FINDS A DINOSAUR

In Brys’ debut picture book, a four-year-old boy discovers a new type of dinosaur while fossil hunting with his dad.

“A little boy, his name is Wylie. / He’s seldom sad AND often smiley.” Wylie is a young boy with pale skin and brown hair whose father’s hobby is digging for fossils and other buried treasure. Wylie goes out with his dad one day. While the father methodically investigates a hill, Wylie wanders ahead and comes across a bone. Analysis by professors from Southern Methodist University reveals the bone to be from a hitherto unknown type of dinosaur—a Nodosaur. Wylie makes the news, and is featured in a presentation at the zoo. Brys tells Wylie’s story in rhymed verse across 21 double-spread pages. The use of iambic meter lends the proceedings a child-friendly singsong quality but also a meandering vagueness as redundant phrases are used to conclude the rhymes. (For example: “They wrap in tissue, cloth and plaster, / Bill joins in and is a master.”) Huey’s illustrations are suitably dirty and chaotic, capturing the enthusiasm and investigative spirit that is in evidence throughout. The text, equally wild, could prove a bit too drably colored for younger readers. The absence of any living dinosaurs may disappoint those drawn in by the title; nevertheless, there is much here to stimulate inquisitive young minds. 

A bright-eyed paleontological tale diminished somewhat by its forced adherence to a rhyme scheme.