Dinosaur!

Rating:
Summary: Jurassic bath
Review: As in the three previous Matt adventures by Peter Sis, gouache paints draw out a young boy's imagination. At the same time, plain white background pages in each book anchor the child in such daily activities as playing, spacing out on the sofa while his mother vacuums, putting away his toys, and this time bathing. Again, one color is highlighted: red in FIRE TRUCK, blue in SHIP AHOY!, orange in TRUCKS TRUCKS TRUCKS, and now green in DINOSAUR.

The author/illustrator takes the hallmark sparse text of FIRE TRUCK and TRUCKS TRUCKS TRUCKS one step further. Thus, DINOSAUR, like SHIP AHOY!, is wordless. Typically, each story holds its own just by the pen and ink and watercolor art. Also, when imagination has worked itself up to its wildest, there is the characteristic reality check reeling in of Matt by his mother: by making pancakes, reading a story, taking a walk, and here providing a bedtime towel rescue from the water-splashed battle in the bathroom.

My mother quickly distinguished birds and butterflies in flight because her parents not only showed her the classic stationary poses in books but also went out on their land at the edge of her small hometown to practice identifying the abundant nature in flight and in motion. Sis likewise decorates the inside pages of the front and back covers with immobile dinosaurs and then depicts them in motion across the Matt quartet's hallmark gate-fold illustration spreading to three pages. The dinosaurs get bigger and interact more forcibly until they all trample across a desert which was probably a jungle before the Jurassic jaws and paws chomped and clomped through it. In the process, DINOSAUR clears up the confusion over similar dinosaurs by grouping the plodding Apatosaurus and upright Plateosaurus; the three-toed Compsognathus and the two-toed Deinonychus; the anteater-faced Corythosaurus and Saurolophus; the armored Europlocephalus, Stegosaurus, and Triceratops; the bigger headed Tyrannosaurus and more pinheaded Camptosaurus.

I like to think of the four Matt adventure books as prequels to the previously published KOMODO! by the same author/illustrator. The little boy who collects trucks could end up collecting dragon memorabilia. Also, with his ship imaginings, Matt could take a trip to the island of the Komodo dragon, particularly after passing through a dinosaur adventure with a dinosaur toy in his earlier years.

This latest book in the Matt quarter takes its place on the shelf with the ZOOM and RE-ZOOM perspective books by Istvan Banyai and with such other classics as TIME TO GET OUT OF THE BATH, SHIRLEY by John Burningham and WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE by Maurice Sendak. DINOSAUR helps young readers get through the terrors of the bath, as described by David F. Birchman in THE RAGGLY SCRAGGLY NO-SOAP NO-SCRUB GIRL and by Rebecca C. Jones in DOWN AT THE BOTTOM OF THE DEEP DARK SEA. Peter Sis also leads the young reader down the road to such classics as the nutcracker, the tin soldier, and the velveteen rabbit stories in which toys have their own lives. Thus, it is not only Matt but also the toy Tyrannosaurus clutched in his left hand that emerge clean enough from the bath ritual.

Rating:
Summary: Le bain prehistorique
Review: This wordless picturebook is just right for sharing with a young dinosaur fan. It begins as a small boy heads to the tub with his toy dinosaur. Soon, "real" dinosaurs begin to creep into the pictures until they eventually spread across the pages and take over the bathroom. Only when mother comes running with a towel does the last dinosaur tail slip off the page. This is a fun book that blurs the lines between a child's imagination and reality.

Rating:
Summary: Dinosaur fun
Review: This wordless picturebook is just right for sharing with a young dinosaur fan. It begins as a small boy heads to the tub with his toy dinosaur. Soon, "real" dinosaurs begin to creep into the pictures until they eventually spread across the pages and take over the bathroom. Only when mother comes running with a towel does the last dinosaur tail slip off the page. This is a fun book that blurs the lines between a child's imagination and reality.