Dinosaurs

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

With its striking black-and-white drawings, this collection of 18 poems will transport readers back to the days when these behemoths roamed the earth. Ages 3-8. (Mar.)

School Library Journal

Gr 3-6 Joining the ever-growing collection of dinosaur lore is Hopkins' new poetry anthology. Not a bad idea, and there is no question as to the literary merit of these poems; the poets include Lillian Moore, Myra Cohn Livingston, and Lillian M. Fisher. But Hopkins has dug up bones, not dinosaurs. These poems celebrate museum displays, not teeth-knashing, tail-twitching giants. Even the more recent poems included here lack the bounce, strut, and giggling nastiness that kids love in Silverstein's A Light in the Attic (Harper, 1981) or Prelutsky's The New Kid on the Block (Greenwillow, 1984). Although well executed, the black-and-white ink drawings reinforce the book's dreamy and reflective but ultimately static mood. Yes, it's a good book, but one can't help wishing a real tyrannosaurus or two had stumbled onto these pages, to raise the dust and spew a little excitement into these placid poems. Cathryn A. Camper, Minneapolis Pub . Lib .