A Trip to Dinosaur Time - Hardcover

Michael Foreman is one of the world’s leading children’s book illustrators. He has written and illustrated numerous books and has won many major awards, including the Kate Greenaway Medal, the Kurt Maschler Award, and the Bologna Graphics Prize. Of A TRIP TO DINOSAUR TIME, he says, "It all started with a timer that my wife had bought for the kitchen. She told us all not to mess with it, but it looked too much like a spaceship to resist. It seemed just the thing for time travel, and if time travel were possible, what better time to travel back to than that of the dinosaurs?"

PreSchool-Grade 3-A mom shows her son a new timer and tells him not to play with it. As soon as she is gone, he takes it, pushes a button, and swirls back to the time of dinosaurs. He is chased by the creatures, and in the nick of time remembers the gadget. He carries an egg home with him that hatches into a dinosaur. The boy sends it, along with the timer, back to the dinosaur's own time, where its mother tells the youngster not to play with it. Both the beginning and end of this story are intriguing, but the journey in between is not particularly eventful or appealing. The descriptive language is full of action and fun, as are the watercolor illustrations. The swirls of pigment portraying time travel are quite effective. However, the words and pictures don't always match. For example, the text says that the mother dinosaur "glared at" Tom, but she just looks shocked. The sky fills with "flying creatures, all toothy and scaly, with angry eyes," but not a one has a tooth in its gaping mouth. This concept has been handled more successfully elsewhere. Try Eric Rohmann's Time Flies (Crown, 1994), Carol Carrick's Patrick's Dinosaurs (Clarion, 1983), and Paul Fleischman's Time Train (HarperTrophy, 1994) instead.
Kathleen Simonetta, Indian Trails Public Library District, Wheeling, IL
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