DON'T ASK A DINOSAUR

Open a new picture book:
DON'T ASK A DINOSAUR,  created by Matt Forrest Esenwine, Deborah Bruss & Louie Chin

post from J.G. Annino


What if...

You opened a book

About dinosaurs

And one stumbled out

And another and another....

C.  Isabel Joshlin Glaser

from "What if" by Isabel Joshlin Glaser in GOOD BOOKS, GOOD TIMES!

selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins,

with pictures from Harvey Stevenson

Dinosaurs, one after another, are

thumpingly what I experienced when I opened the gift package 

from a children's book imprint new to me, POW! in Brooklyn. 

Inside I met the characters of DON'T ASK A DINOSAUR 

by authors Deborah Bruss & Matt Forrest Esenwine (pal through Poetry Friday,)

with color-pow comics-style illustrations by Louie Chin.

Two children tackle a list:

"If you're going to plan

                           a birthday party,

stop and think it through.

                           Be careful

                           what you dare

         to ask a dinosaur to do."

This jolly story

romps around in rhyme, with the ways

significant dinosaurs that once partied on Earth,

might add mayhem to a child's

living room hee-haw.

I love how this book is clever in bringing to

the youngest read-aloud set, the famous but also

lesser-known

dinos, along with a specific

characteristic for each. It's fun, it's a party,

but at the same time, now I know about the one who would be a

balloon-buster, Therezinosaurus. Due to its pointy, sometimes,
three-FOOT claws, I know that (ther-uh-ZEEN-oh-sawr-us) is a non-starter,
party planning wise,
thanks to DON'T ASK A DINOSAUR.

(Not that they all wouldn't be miserable helpers, but

 specifically don't task Therezinosaurus to help with stretchy air containers.)

In our own family zoo, we have a super wonderful, dino-crazy Kindergarten guy

so this book stomps, crashes, tears, off to Will in Rhode Island.

I don't know about you, but when I open a p.b. new to me,

after enjoying it, I delve deeper to see what it will teach me

about creating children's books.

With this one, I think what would result if

an editor asked me to put together a birthday theme

p.b. on dinosaurs?

I do have an imagination, but my guess, since Florida never

had dinosaurs (under water then, later the peninsula was a groundsloth sauna,

etc.) I would have gone old school dull. A party decorated with a cute

dino piñata & perhaps I would have had up on a wall, a pin- (Velcro) the-tail

on the dino station. And maybe I would have had that dino jump

off the wall, dance with the kids to music. So where is the

value added in that? Where is the inventiveness? 

Another plan - I might have had a birthday party of dinosaurs, by dinosaurs, for dinosaurs, 

with no kids in it.  Where is the fun in that.

Go show some love for DON'T ASK A DINOSAUR.

Your family, classroom, school library will enjoy a roaring

good time with it. And learn something new, too.

POW! is here, publishing books in boisterous Brooklyn.

Group Blog featured  FLASHLIGHT NIGHT from Matt Forrest Essenwine & Fred Koehler.

And you will want to see other books from Deborah Bruss!

***