1, 2, 3, DO THE DINOSAUR

A child clad in a dinosaur costume dances with dino pals all the way to bedtime.

In this somewhat oversized board book, Tom swishes, stomps, and roars through the jungle with his fellow dinos. Even an encounter with Tyrannosaurus rex doesn’t slow them down; the toothy dinosaur simply joins in the fun. It’s a refreshing change to see the oft-feared T. rex given the opportunity to belong to the group. Brown-skinned Tom looks adorable in his yellow costume, his curly dark hair peeking out from underneath the top. One sweet element of the story is that Tom is always assumed to be a dinosaur; there is no discussion of his playing dress-up or using his imagination, the same way that during play, a child simply becomes what they imagine themselves to be. Beardshaw’s illustrations are charming, full of friendly-faced creatures set against a backdrop of softly erupting volcanoes and waterfalls. Robinson’s rhyming text is mostly paced well, with the refrain of “Let’s do the dinosaur!” appearing several times throughout. It also acts as a nice call to readers to imitate the story’s movements, chomping, swishing, stomping, and roaring along the way. It even plays with the concepts of quiet and loud. Given the book’s larger size and the potential for participation, this would make a nice read-aloud for a toddler group as well as sharing in a lap.

Dino fans or not, little readers will dig this one.