Dino lovers will be thrilled to spend a spooky holiday with their favorite cast.
This salute to Halloween joins the author and illustrator’s Dino-Holidays series.
Rollicking rhyming verses describe all the activities that accompany the cooler, longer October nights and falling leaves. The all-dinosaur cast (in an otherwise modern, Western world) pick pumpkins and carve jack-o’-lanterns, play games at the Costume Ball, and do the Monster Mash. A visit to a haunted house strikes fear in the hearts of a few dinos (T. Rex flees), but “the others…know the spooks are just pretend.” This busy spread shows the behind-the-scenes dinos wearing the costumes and animating the scary scenes. The highlights of this outing are choosing a costume and, of, course, the trick-or-treating. In both Wheeler’s text and Gott’s digital illustrations, the dinos have their own personalities, especially poor, indecisive Apatosaurus. While the typical sights of Halloween are here (bats, skeletons, witches, etc.), the scariest is what the Ptero Twins find in their treat bags: toothbrushes! As with the others in this series and with companion series Dino-Sports, this is best suited to an audience who knows their dinosaurs; some of the pictured dinos can be a challenge to match to the text, which often uses nicknames: Pachy, Compy, Diplo, for example.
Dino lovers will be thrilled to spend a spooky holiday with their favorite cast. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5124-0317-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Only for dedicated fans of the series.
When a kid gets the part of the ninja master in the school play, it finally seems to be the right time to tackle the closet monster.
“I spot my monster right away. / He’s practicing his ROAR. / He almost scares me half to death, / but I won’t be scared anymore!” The monster is a large, fluffy poison-green beast with blue hands and feet and face and a fluffy blue-and-green–striped tail. The kid employs a “bag of tricks” to try to catch the monster: in it are a giant wind-up shark, two cans of silly string, and an elaborate cage-and-robot trap. This last works, but with an unexpected result: the monster looks sad. Turns out he was only scaring the boy to wake him up so they could be friends. The monster greets the boy in the usual monster way: he “rips a massive FART!!” that smells like strawberries and lime, and then they go to the monster’s house to meet his parents and play. The final two spreads show the duo getting ready for bed, which is a rather anticlimactic end to what has otherwise been a rambunctious tale. Elkerton’s bright illustrations have a TV-cartoon aesthetic, and his playful beast is never scary. The narrator is depicted with black eyes and hair and pale skin. Wallace’s limping verses are uninspired at best, and the scansion and meter are frequently off.
Only for dedicated fans of the series. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4894-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
