Dino Bikes!

Little Stego Saurus watches the other young dinosaurs race up and down Dinosaur Hill on their bicycles. Stego longs for a bicycle of his own, but Mother Saurus worries that he is still too little to be able to keep his balance. she comes up with a wonderful solution — brand-new bicycle, complete with training wheels! Overjoyed, Stego rides off to join the other bicyclists. But they make fun of his training wheels, so Stego decides to remove them, transforming his bike into a real two-wheeler. Stego isn't ready yet for just two wheels. Down he falls, to jeers and laughter from the others. How a huge brontosaurus — a novice bicyclist himself — puts an end to their taunts and restores Stego's confidence is an imaginative and reassuring story about peer pressure and the importance of learning at your own pace.

Jomo, a little Stegosaurus, watches the other young dinosaurs race up and down Dinosaur Hill on their bicycles. Jomo longs for a bike of his own, but his mother worries he's too little to keep his balance. She soon comes up with a wonderful solution. Full color.

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 2-Stego Saurus wants a bike but his mother fears he will fall off and hurt himself. She finally gives in and gets him one with training wheels. The other dinosaurs tease him until he takes them off, and, of course, he falls down. The bullies' laughter is silenced, however, as Dinosaur Hill begins to shake and wobble-and is revealed to be the neck of Bronto, an even larger dinosaur who has overhead their conversation and tried to ride his own bike without training wheels. Stego and Bronto make a deal to put their training wheels back on. The final spread shows that Bronto, too, is riding on the back of another dinosaur on a bike, who rides on the back of another, and so on. The plot of this story is rather thin and relies mainly on the layers-of-dinosaurs gimmick; the bullies are never actually dealt with, though presumably they are chastened by Bronto's size. The real attraction here is the whimsical artwork, heavy on shades of green and brown, which brings to life the humorous notion of dinosaurs on wheels.-Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Maryland School for the Deaf, Columbia Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Eva Montanari lives in Rimini, Italy, and graduated from the European School of Design in Milan. She has illustrated several books that have been published in her native Italy as well as Taiwan, Germany, Japan, and the United States.