Review of DINOTHESAURUS by Florian Douglas

Bibliography
Florian, Douglas. 2009. Dinothesaurus. Ill. by Florian Douglas. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781416979784.


Plot Summary
In his humorous and surprisingly factual collection of poems, Douglas Florian pens fun-loving odes to the prehistoric creatures of the Cretaceous period. The book begins with "The Age of Dinosaurs," which serves as an introduction to the next seventeen poems. At the turn of each page, the reader is introduced to a different dinosaur where Florian playfully provides historical facts: "Stegosaurus, Herbivorous, dined on plants inside the forest." With the concluding poem “The End of Dinosaurs,” Florian asks the reader, "What made the dinosaurs die out? Why don’t they still parade about?" His thought provoking questions are sure to spark the readers’ imaginations, both young and prehistoric!


Critical Analysis
Douglas Florian writes and illustrates his homage to primordial reptiles in his vividly inventive book of poems, Dinothesaurus. Florian’s rhymes are rhythmically inviting as the meters whimsically play off the tongue: "One hundred million years before us, lived the gig-not-o-saurus. Gigantic, titanic, enormous, colossal—what once was humongous is now just a fossil." He also cleverly wraps historical facts in a package of humorous wordplay and irreverently funny stanzas: "A fine meal of mollusk taste jolly delicious. But we aren’t vicious, we’re very polite—We always say please before we might bite."

The illustrations are an integral part of Dinothesaurus, as they play off of the poems and mirror their cheeky humor. In a stanza from "Gigantosaurus," Florian writes: "When it was hungry or got into fights, it opened its jaws and took giga-bites." Accompanying this poem is an illustration of a bionic-looking dinosaur. This brightly painted gigantosaurus fittingly spans the length of two pages. Tumbling from his mouth is a collage of modern electronics including a cell phone, calculator, and laptop computer. Parts of the dinosaur’s flesh are cut out to reveal an anatomy composed of computer chips and wires. Florian’s illustrations are creatively crafted from a variety of mediums, including watercolors, chalk, paper bags, and magazine clippings. The viewer will also pleasingly find irony in many of the pictures. For example, in the illustration of a micropachycephalosaurus, Florian places the tiny 20-inch dinosaur under a gigantic collage of letters that spell out its long, tongue-twisting name (Florian mercifully provides pronunciations below the name of each dinosaur).

Keeping in line with his fact-filled poems, Florian thoughtfully includes a "glossarysaurus," a list of dinosaur museums and fossil sites, and suggestions for further reading. With its ingenious mix of facts and fun, Dinothesaurus is sure to educate and entertain children for years to come.


Review Excerpts
Starred review in Publishers Weekly: “Florian's free-flowing, witty collection of poems and collages about dinosaurs is a giganotosaurus delight—perhaps his best work ever.”
Starred review in School Library Journal: “This smart marriage of dinosaurs and poetry will delight a wide audience.”
Kirkus review: “A set of dinophile-pleasing verses penned by a poet with a rare knack for wordplay and silly rhymes finds apt visual setting fronting playful images of monsters rearing up from extinction to grin toothily at young viewers.”


Connections
*Could be used to introduce children to dinosaurs or prehistoric times.
*Could be used to introduce children to poetry.
*The illustrations would be great examples for children to see how different methods of art can be used (i.e. collage, painting, and drawing).
*Students could write a poem about their favorite animal and make a collage to illustrate the poem.