Inane, both psychologically and plotwise.
Gregory wakes up in bed transformed…not into a giant cockroach, but a T. Rex.
Many’s deliberate riff on the premise of Kafka’s classic tale is the high point of this incoherent hash. For no reason beyond a physical change that only he can apparently see, the moment he rises on the morning he’s scheduled to present a school report on the extinction of the dinosaurs by meteorite, Gregory becomes a destructive monster. He rips his breakfast-cereal box apart with a roar, bellows when he realizes he’s left his diorama at home, and savagely destroys his classmates’ elaborate dino-projects. For this last act, rather than being punished or even scolded, he’s briefly sent to the office, then actually applauded once teacher and students understand that he was supposedly imitating a T. Rex. As if! In fact, only his harried single mom reacts realistically to his acting out. Jaskiel brings like murkiness to the illustrations, which feature a flailing white lad whose anxiety at a teacher’s question looks more like severe nausea and who in dino form looks like Barney’s anthropomorphic green cousin. At a convenient point Gregory changes back to a boy and, after deciding that night that T. Rexes aren’t all that cool, dreams of becoming a (presumably less aggressive) triceratops. In the pictures the adults are all white, but the students are a diverse group.
Inane, both psychologically and plotwise. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4556-2304-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Pelican
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
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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