Superheroes + dinosaurs = two great tastes that don't necessarily go together.It's career day at Rawr's school, and the class' sole dino has come with aspirations on full display as a superhero. Rawr explains a superhero's attributes, including strength, speed, and flight (no mention is made of helping others). Later, when Rawr spots a broken fire hydrant and a treed kitten, it's "SUPER RAWR to the rescue!" That night Rawr speculates that maybe it would be fun to be an astronaut instead, so dreams of "SPACE RAWR to the rescue!" close the book (though Rawr's still dressed like a superhero, with nary a spacesuit in sight). It's difficult identifying what precisely Doodler is trying to say here about heroes. Rawr is already a gigantic dinosaur, so adding a caped-crusader element is gilding the lily. Is the book trying to say that you can be heroic in your everyday life? Maybe so, but swallowing large amounts of water from fire hydrants and lifting kittens from trees falls squarely into the "dinosaur" rather than "everyday hero" slot. The text only adds to the confusion. Rawr explains what a superhero can do, including "A superhero can hold the world in one hand" (a classroom globe). Never mind that this is more a godlike trait than a superpower.This book's squishy cover is not the only padded thing here. (Picture book. 3-5)

During school career day, a dinosaur introduces itself to the class as "Super Rawr, the superhero!" The dino does all sorts of good deeds, from rescuing kittens to slurping up water from a broken hydrant. Not much actually happens in the story, but the bright, colorful illustrations and a likable main character should keep preschoolers engaged.

Displaying a properly unfettered imagination, the towering dinosaur introduced in Rawr! (2013) lumbers into the classroom on Career Day sporting a wide belt and a cape. His goal? To demonstrate not only the strength required of a superhero (he lifts up a smiling teacher) and the ability to leap tall buildings (or at least a stack of blocks), but also the right attitude, too. After school he speeds to rescue soggy classmates from a broken hydrant and plucks a kitten from a tree. That night, the weary dino spired perhaps by the "Star Rawrs" poster on the wall imbs into bed to dream of making heroic rescues in space. As in the previous outing, the front cover features a padded-cloth version of the toothy extrovert, and human figures included in the simple illustrations are generic but diverse. Still, by looking beneath the spandex to define superheroes by what they do, not what they wear, the pseudonymous Doodler may plant a salutary notion in the minds of budding careerists.