dinosaurs

Attention Auto Aficionados, Jurassic Junkies and Diehard Dinomaniacs!

Buckle Up and Start Your Engines! Vroom! Zoom! We’re off on a ~~prehysteri~~c prehistoric poetry adventure sure to get your motors humming.

If you relish turbo-charged humor, well-oiled rhymes, fun facts and genius cartoons, steer your way right into Dinos That Drive by Suzy Levinson and Dustin Harbin (Tundra, 2025). This well-versed vehicle consisting of 21 poems is packed with fossilized fun from brontos to buses and triceratops to tractors, with friendly herbivores and one terrifying carnivore throwing a wacky wrench in the works (say that fast five times). Look, here they come now, roarin’ down the highway . . .

DINOS . . . GOING?

You've never seen a dinosaur
that's into driving cars?
You've never seen a dinosaur
that flies a jumbo jet?
You've never seen a dinosaur
that rockets to the stars?
Then buckle up! Let's take a ride . . .
YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET!

The concept of putting dinosaurs behind the wheel is brilliant: Dinos + Things That Go = Kid Heaven. Dustin Harbin’s imaginative, immersive Scarry-esque cartoons expand upon the captivating humor of Levinson’s rollicking poems via zany details and cool sight gags.

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1. Recently I’ve been on a Becca Stadtlander kick, browsing her work online and catching up with the children’s books she’s illustrated so far.

You might know her from David Elliott’s On the Wing (Candlewick, 2014), Eugenie Doyle’s Sleep Tight Farm (Chronicle Books, 2016), or maybe even the two Classics Unfolded titles she’s done — The Secret Garden and Pride and Prejudice (these are 14-scene concertina fold-out books).

I particularly love her still life paintings. Her fine lines, delicate details and pleasing compositions lend a unique beauty to everyday objects.

And isn’t this butterfly painting gorgeous?

You can purchase prints at her Etsy Shop and greeting cards at Red Cap Cards. And do look for the books she’s illustrated if you’re not already familiar with them. Just lovely!

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