Synopsis
When a T. rex invades the present day through a time portal, the Time Soldiers kids struggle to keep the raging dinosaur from harming anyone.
Sally J. K. Davies - Children's Literature
Like the first book in this "Time Soldiers" series, this book is a cross between a screen-play for a Jurassic Park type movie and "The Magic Tree House" series of books. In this episode, the six children discover a Tyrannosaurus Rex storming through their neighborhood. They guess correctly that this dinosaur has entered through the time portal in the woods near their home. They have already made a trip through the portal which took them back to the time of the dinosaurs in the last book. This time they find out why Rex is so angry. The narrative of the story switches back and forth between the dinosaur's thoughts and the viewpoint of the children. Neither narrative is entirely convincing. Overall the characters and plot are not well conceived, but the book is certainly full of action. The illustrator gets top marks for efforts with his digitally enhanced, dramatic photo collage illustrations. Even within the book, the reader cannot escape blatant advertising. Just before the last page of the story, set within the text, the reader is shown a boxed advertisement for the next book in the series. It includes a web page address to find out about Patch the title of the next book. This book is part of the "Big Guy Books Time Soldiers" series. 2005, Big Guy Books, Ages 6 to 10.