Tyrannosaurus Drip

From the author of the bestselling picture book, The Gruffalo, comes a deceptively simple, completely charming story about a little dinosaur who takes on the big wide world.

Publishers Weekly

Taunting and name-calling go all the way back to the Cretaceous period, according to Donaldson's (The Gruffalo) tale of dinosaur species that don't see eye to eye. Lively rhyming text quickly establishes the battle lines in the swamp as the duckbill dinosaurs hoot, "Up with rivers!... Up with reeds!... Up with bellyfuls of juicy water weeds!"-only to be answered with, "Up with hunting!... Up with war!... Up with bellyfuls of duckbill dinosaur!" from the T. rex camp. Not even a classic mix-up-a duckbill egg hatching in a T. rex nest-can change the dynamic. The out-of-place duckbill, disparagingly called Drip by his adoptive siblings, saves the day, serving the carnivores' comeuppance, but the story lacks heart, with the victors no more sympathetic than the bullies. Roberts's (Mouse Noses on Toast) cartoon dinos have anthropomorphic arms and bulging eyes; they cavort among intricately detailed tree trunks and subtly patterned water. A few volcanoes flaming in the distance and riverbanks strewn with various bones and brambles or lush with foliage keep readers in the prehistoric era. Ages 4-8. (June)

Julia Donaldson is the author of over 50 books for children, including The Gruffalo, which has sold over a million copies and won the Smarties Prize, one of the UK’s top children’s book awards. The combined sales of her top 5 titles is well over 3 million copies (see below). She lives in Glasgow, Scotland.

David Roberts won the 2006 Nestlé Children’s Book Prize Gold Award for his illustrations in Mouse Noses on Toast. He gets inspiration for his drawings simply by looking out of the window and observing life, nature, and the world. He lives in central London.