DINOSNORES

How did the dinosaurs get ready for bed? “They bathed and brushed and fluffed their ferns / around the dino site . . . / then laid their horns and spikes to rest / and kissed their eggs good night.” Plainly modeled on the toy dinosaurs that are part of so many young readers’ kit bags, huge, toothy figures in jellybean colors settle down, many clutching plushies, all about a prehistoric landscape. And were dinosaurs quiet sleepers? Not so—in fact, the cumulative effect of all those thunderous “Proto-grunts, / Diplo-hoots, / Allo-snorts / and Tyranno-toots” drove amphibians out of the water, ignited volcanoes and ultimately caused the Earth itself to crack open, sending the modern continents adrift. Along with proposing a novel theory of plate tectonics, this poke at the past will produce from children the same sort of Tyranno-toots as Jane Yolen’s How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? (2000). (Picture book. 6-8)