K-Gr 3 Young Flinn the dinosaur lover returns for a class trip to the museum. The boy is amazed by the skeleton of the ferocious Giganotosaurus, but becomes especially intrigued by the mysterious disappearance of one of the museum's other displaysthe pirate treasure of Captain Rufus Rumblebelly. Flinn and his friends follow a trail of clues (overlooked by the museum staff, of course) to a dusty cupboard, which leads to the cabin of Rumblebelly's ship. Here they find the pirate's grandson tied up, having recently been robbed himself by singing pirate dinosaurs en route to Bag o' Bones Island. Captain Flinn takes the helm and eventually recovers the treasure from pirate Giganotosaurus, who is deathly afraid of the spider dangling from Flinn's hat. Ayto's childlike yet masterful mixed-media paintings of spiky-haired Flinn, the rotund pirate, and a fanciful cast of dinosaurs will keep audiences glued to the page. As in Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs (S & S, 2005), the theme here is the beauty of a good imagination. Andreae pulls off another rousing tale for any young person who loves to dream big. Jayne Damron, Farmington Community Library, MI

While on a museum field trip, young Captain Flinn is led to Gordon Gurgleguts's ship, just in time to help find the rest of his treasure. Flinn must also save the treasure--and Captain Gurgleguts--from Bag o' Bones Island's pirate dinosaurs. The story's narration and the angular, collage-style watercolor and ink illustrations are full of fun.

The creators of Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs (2005) again chuck lots of promising elements together—evidently in hopes that they'll assemble themselves into an exciting, or at least coherent, yarn. They don't. Shortly after pausing in awe before the huge skeleton of a Giganotosaurus on a class trip to the museum, Flinn and friends fall through a wardrobe—er, closet and find themselves aboard a ship heading for Bag O' Bones Island, where they fight scaly pirates to recover a treasure stolen from the aforementioned museum. Enter Giganotosaurus at the climax, as a towering pirate who hardly gets to roar before he's reduced to jelly by the sight of a tiny spider. Ayto illustrates the sketchy plot with frenzied cartoon collages featuring lots of big teeth, jumbled action and a ship that looks like a fugitive from a Monty Python animation. Young readers will give this a perfunctory once-over at best; set them instead on a course for the more seaworthy likes of Deb Lund's Dinosailors (2003), illustrated by Howard Fine. (Picture book. 6-8)