I AM AN ANKYLOSAURUS

“She’s huge like a tank. She is covered in armor. Bony plates join together under her skin. Stubby spikes grow all over her body.” In this companion to I Am a Tyrannosaurus (2004), Wallace uses similarly melodramatic language but takes a vegetarian’s point of view, following a low-slung dino as she lays eggs and defends them from a predatory troodon, then rumbles off destructively into the woods to chow down until hatching time. Bostock’s dappled orange and green watercolors give the prehistoric setting a hot, sunny look; he mutes his creatures’ skin tones and downplays the tale’s violence to the point where even a tyrannosaur’s attack leaves only barely visible claw marks on the knobby protagonist. Still, young fans of all things toothy, scaly and extinct will roar with interest at this brief episode. (Picture book. 6-8)