Dino-Christmas
An entertaining Christmas-themed addition to the much-loved Dino-Sports series.
How do dinos celebrate Christmas? With ice skating, decorating, snowball fights, a parade, and more! Share in the dinosaurs' delight as they make cookies, dream about their presents, sing carols, and keep a lookout for Santa Claws! Lisa Wheeler and Barry Gott team up again to bring these hilarious dinosaurs and their antics to life.
Creators
Lisa Wheeler is the author of many award-winning picture books. Her Seadogs won the 2006 Texas Bluebonnet Award, and her Mammoths on the Move is a 2006 Parent's Choice. She travels extensively for school visits and resides in Michigan.
Barry Gott wrote and illustrated humorous greeting cards at American Greetings for several years before leaving to illustrate children’s books full-time from his attic studio in Cleveland, Ohio. He occasionally ventures into the outside world to visit schools and libraries. Barry's books include the Dino-Sports series, Holler Loudly by Cynthia Leitich Smith, and What DO Teachers Do (After YOU Leave School)? (Carolrhoda Books, 2006). Honk! Splat! Vroom! is Barry's first author-illustrated book.
Reviews
A town filled with colorful dinosaur characters gets ready for a large-scale Christmas celebration. The latest dino-book from this author-illustrator pair starts with the arrival of winter, with preparations underway for Dino-Christmastime. Bird’s-eye views show lots of riotous action, including snowball fights, ice skating, and hockey. Kids who can recite the names of every dinosaur will love finding their favorites among the smiling players as they frolic through wintertime activities: ‘Raptor races. Stego chases. / See the smiles on happy faces. / Pachy pummels! Compy flings! / T. rex tries snow-angel wings.’ Simple, rhyming text in trochaic tetrameter propels the fast-paced narrative, although some couplets trip off the tongue more easily than others. Bright, lively illustrations fill the pages with lots of humorous details as the Dino-Christmas Parade gets underway—and a little out of hand thanks to the naughty Ptero twins, who throw snowballs at T. rex. With the arrival of the ‘main attraction—Santa Claws!’—the twins get their comeuppance. The straightforward plot takes a back seat to the hilarious antics of the dinos romping through the town and across the pages. The last spread hints at the next book to come. This will delight dino-loving readers eager for the arrival of Christmas.
Kirkus Reviews
Gott’s bright digital depictions of the rowdy dinosaurs are already great fun; seeing them crunch down on Christmas cookies, sing carols, and parade in the streets ups the ante.
Publishers Weekly
Children who enjoy dinosaurs, Christmas and rhyming text will have fun reading Dino-Christmas. Christmas is approaching and the dinosaurs are having fun. There are raptor races and stego chases and T. rex makes snow angels. Then there are the Ptero twins with hockey sticks, Triceratops with frozen toes and T. rex and Raptor are eating s’mores! Allosaurus is making wreaths while Troodon is painting a giant candy cane. And Stegosaurus performs a solo during the caroling. Young readers will have fun watching the dinosaurs get ready for Christmas and Santa Claus in this nicely illustrated picture book.
NorthBayNipissing.com
