Rating: 5 dino-mite stars
This is such a fun book. Our neighbor got it for Ben, for Lorelei's birthday. You know you've got a great friend when both of your kids get a gift on one of their birthdays.
The gist of the book is simple: One day a little boy and his mother go out for their "boring" route of errands and...WAIT. I have to stop here and tell all children's book authors to stop saying that errands are boring. Let's call them riveting and fun and exciting, as we pretend they are in our house!
Anyway, at each stop, they get a dinosaur with their purchase. At the doughnut shop, then leave with a triceratops. At the doctor, a stegosaurus. At the barber, a pterosaur. And on the way home, the little boy can't help but feed a baby hadrosaur that runs alongside his car some doughnuts, so that "little" guy follows the car home, too.
His mother is, understandably, fairly distraught at the thought of keeping four dinosaurs. But then, crafty as all moms are, she figures out ways for them to help with the household chores. So, they stay.The fantastic illustrations of David Small deserve a round of applause, too. Small makes the dinosaurs giant--check out the image on the right. The triceratops, and the other dinosaurs, practically leap out on to your lap! What talent! The way that he contrasts the exasperated mothers and the delighted kids as mother-kid combos tote around their new dinosaurs is really funny.
I have to say that I feel an affinity towards Elise Broach. Maybe because she is super educated and started writing children's books when her youngest (of three) kids was a year old. She points out on her website that she started writing books when she was in grade school, and her "parents, teachers, and school librarians showered me with totally unjustified encouragement, saying they knew my books would be on their shelves one day." Just goes to show you what some quality, surely justified encouragement can do to child.
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