Genius - Rated 
I love Julia Donaldson's books because they entertain the adult as well as the child. They hold us spellbound on the settee as we revel in the rhymes and sway with the rhythms. My five year old boy loves Tyrannosauruses and my 4 year old girl likes the families of dinosaurs and the tiny egg-carrying Compognathus. Even when I'm tired, I feel better after reading one of JD's masterpieces aloud, and the little ones go to bed content because there's always a happy ending.
An excellent addition to any collection - Rated
This book is another Donaldson triumph. I have used it in a number of storytime sessions with a wide variety of ages and it goes down a storm. The language is clever with repetition and sing song moments. The baddies are really bad the goodies are really loveable and the illustrations are excellent. Give it a try. You'll like it!
A roaring success - Rated
This was given to my son for his 4th birthday and has become a firm favourite. It is a smoothly flowing rhyming story that begs to be told with silly voices at various different decibels. It is nicely illustrated and I agree with previous reviewers that instead of being as bold and colourful as we would expect from a Donaldson offering, it requires a little more observation from the reader as there is more than meets the eye in some pages: on this basis it is definitely a book a child could grow with and get more out of each time it is read.
A Pre-Hysterical Romp! - Rated
This book needs to be read out loud, and you have to add silly voices. My boys (aged 5 and 7 years) loved it and demanded repeat readings many times. The art is wonderfully anarchic, and characters full of colour and personality, and there is a lot of detail half-hidden in the background, making it a book that your kids will love to look through to find where then egg-stealing Comp will turn up next.
The writing is good, and the rhymes are well constructed. There's one page where you'll get caught out as you turn the page, but it's great stuff.
Whether you are cheering for the predators or the herbivores, you'll find lots of cheer in this delightful package. It's only a shame that it isn't a longer book so that the fun could go on longer. Long live duckbill dinosaurs!
A carnivore v herbivore dinosaur story with strong rhythm and rhyme - Rated
Told with strong rhythm and rhyme as you'd expect, this is another sturdy addition to the Donaldson stable. In a nutshell, there are two types of dinosaur living alongside each other, the duck-billed dinosaurs who are peace-loving and vegetarian and the T. Rexes who, obviously, aren't. By chance a duck-billed dinosaur egg ends up in the T. Rex nest and the grim and grisly mother T Rex hatches a rather drippy little specimen. T. Drip, as his sisters name him, runs away across the river where he finds a herd of duckbill dinosaurs and when his T Rex family come across the river to eat the duckbills, he saves the day. The illustrations are lovely, quirky and funky with cool expressions on the dinosaurs faces, though the colour palette is not as wide-ranging as some of the other Donaldson stories. With a slightly more detailed and slower paced story, I wonder whether the book is aimed at the slightly older child than Sharing a Shell, Room on The Broom and The Gruffalo? Make sure you have those first, and then add this to your bookshelf as you child's attention span develops. Perfect for the older preschooler and Key Stage 1 children.
|
