There are lunging, snapping, biting Tyrannosaurus rex’s on nearly every page of this Let’s-Read-And-Find-Out About title. Young browsers will enjoy the pictures, but may have a hard time finding some of the detailed but subdued text, occasionally buried in the landscape. Too bad, because the author has some interesting things to say. For instance, T. rex had nearly the largest brain of any of the dinosaurs. “Scientists think that this big brain must have endowed T. rex with extremely keen senses.” These senses, goes the theory, might have helped him sniff out or hear herds or the sick or dying. And T. rex had hollow bones, which may have made him a fast runner. There is no mention of conjecture about whether he was warm blooded or not. Other speculation abounds throughout the text, but there is no documentation for any of it. Stage two titles are supposed to have more challenging concepts for primary grade children. In some places, it’s not the concepts, but the sentence structure that may challenge the primary grade reader. For example, “With prey as formidable as Euoplocephalus, Triceratops, Alamosaurus, or Edmontosaurus, a dead or injured dinosaur might have been T. rex’s first choice.” An afterword includes brief information about other T. rex relatives. While it will certainly find its audience, this title needs a little less lurid illustration and some documentation. (Nonfiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-027933-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
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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