What’s bigger than Elasmosaurus, has more teeth than Smilodon, and is fiercer than T-rex? It must be Megalodon, the giant ancestor of the great white shark that roamed the ancient seas 50 million years ago eating whales. O’Brien, author of Gigantic: How Big Were the Dinosaurs? (1999) is back with another toothy monster to delight young dinosaur fans. Beginning simply and dramatically, showing one giant creature after another, O’Brien builds to his subject, which comes crashing out of the water and onto a two-paged spread featuring his bloody mouth. Then continuing in this engaging style, he gives Megalodon plenty of room to show off as he looms and threatens and shows plenty of his enormous teeth. In fact, the author notes that the only evidence of Megalodon scientists have discovered to date is a few vertebrae and some large fossilized teeth. Using the size of the teeth of the great white shark as a comparison, some scientists predict the ancient shark was 50 feet long. O’Brien’s double-paged spreads give ample room to compare this monster to more familiar large beasts: a great white shark or Tyrannosaurus rex. In one telling shot, the jaw of the Megalodon surrounds the standing figure of a man, dressed in a snorkel and pink inner tube. It is this simple approach, laden with enormous kid appeal that will make this sail off the shelves. The author may inspire a whole new generation of treasure hunters as he notes in an afterword that giant fossil teeth have been found all over the world, but “the best place to find them is the eastern United States.” For younger readers than Caroline Arnold’s Giant Shark: Megalodon, Prehistoric Super Predator (2000). (timeline, tooth facts) (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-8)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6214-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with...
Reynolds and Brown have crafted a Halloween tale that balances a really spooky premise with the hilarity that accompanies any mention of underwear.
Jasper Rabbit needs new underwear. Plain White satisfies him until he spies them: “Creepy underwear! So creepy! So comfy! They were glorious.” The underwear of his dreams is a pair of radioactive-green briefs with a Frankenstein face on the front, the green color standing out all the more due to Brown’s choice to do the entire book in grayscale save for the underwear’s glowing green…and glow they do, as Jasper soon discovers. Despite his “I’m a big rabbit” assertion, that glow creeps him out, so he stuffs them in the hamper and dons Plain White. In the morning, though, he’s wearing green! He goes to increasing lengths to get rid of the glowing menace, but they don’t stay gone. It’s only when Jasper finally admits to himself that maybe he’s not such a big rabbit after all that he thinks of a clever solution to his fear of the dark. Brown’s illustrations keep the backgrounds and details simple so readers focus on Jasper’s every emotion, writ large on his expressive face. And careful observers will note that the underwear’s expression also changes, adding a bit more creep to the tale.
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with Dr. Seuss’ tale of animate, empty pants. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0298-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
© 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.
