Review by Booklist Review
Gr. 2-5. In this intriguing collection of poetry, Prelutsky integrates fact with rollicking rhyme schemes while Lobel supplies full-page portraits, rejuvenating dinosaurs once again.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Fourteen gangly dinosaurs parade through this cheerful new book of light verse. In the final work of Lobel's distinguished career, his winning drawings are accurate without being frightening, and Prelutsky's verse ( Ride a Purple Pelican and The New Kid on the Block ) is rhythmical and funny. Scientific information is filtered through the clever stanzas, and each drawing is accompanied by a pronunciation guide. Most poems contain references to the habits of the creatures described; e.g., ``Stegosaurus was a creature uncontentious and benign,/ and the row of armored plates upon its back/ failed to guard its tender belly or protect its flimsy spine.'' But humor abounds: ``How fortunate then,'' Prelutsky says of the deinonychus who stuffed monsters ``inside of its belly,'' that the creature is ``no longer here/ to eat us like cream cheese and jelly.'' A combination of insight and funny business, further jollied by the illustrations, makes this book irresistible. Ages 4-up. (August) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-5 A dinosaur book collaboration between Arnold Lobel and Jack Prelutsky sounds almost too good to be true. And that's the case with this book, which has good intentions but doesn't quite carry through with them. No problem with Lobel's illustrations, which combine just the right amount of fantasy and realism to capture a child's imagination. It's Prelutsky's verse which is the detractor here. True, some of the poems are rollicking and fun, such as these lines describing Deinonychus: ``Ferocity was its predominant trait,/ its habits were purely predacious,/ it ate what it caught, and it caught what it ate/ in the days of the early Cretaceous.'' But for many of these poems, much of the verse seems confined by the subject matter, as if Prelutsky were afraid to let his imagination enhance what he considers factual information. Sadly, some of the information he reiterates about dinosaurs is out of date; the idea of small-brained, prehistoric plodders doomed for extinction is no more. Prelutsky would do well to get hold of a copy of Bakker's Dinosaur Heresies (Morrow, 1986) and update his perception of herbivores and Sauropods, in particular. Thoughtful pronunciation guides help readers tackle colossal dinosaur names, but young readers will still struggle with the many other multisyllabic words that set the cadence of these rhymes. Cathryn A. Camper, Minneapolis Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Fourteen grand dinosaurs, rendered comic by Prelutsky's fib-tickling doggerel and endearingly ferocious by Lobel's portraits. Like Will Cuppy, Prelutsky bases his humor on true facts in amusing juxtapositions, but Prelutsky's is much augmented by his inspired solutions to the problems posed by the verse form (""Leptopterygius, big as a city bus,/was an insatiable ichthyosaur,/anything captured by Leptopterygius/never was seen in the sea anymore""). The verse, incidentally, provides fine reinforcement for the pronunciations provided (the foregoing was ""lep-toe-ter-IDGE-ee-us"") while dramatizing the characteristics for which the dinosaurs were named. Memorable use of onomatopoeia (ponderous ""Diplodocus plodded along long ago"") and wry observations where less familiar words are made clear by the context (""Brachiosaurus was truly immense,/its vacuous mind was uncluttered by sense"") add to the fun. Lobel's dinosaurs are just fight: fierce, funny, and so big that each invades its neatly ruled boundary--accurate enough for the purpose but also a satisfyingly ""wild thing."" A winner on every count. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
