School Library Journal Starred Review (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

PreS-Gr 3 This animated version of Jane Yolen's book (Blue Sky Press, 2007) is a perfect way to start the school year. Viewers, especially dinophiles, will delight as the remiss school children turn into lumbering dinosaurs, committing all sorts of infractions during the school day. Being late for the school bus, roughhousing in the schoolyard, running in the halls, disrupting class, calling out of turn, pushing, and teasing are among the misbehaviors featured in this humorously didactic story. Yolen's rhyming text and Mark Teague's irresistible brightly-colored dinosaurs are accompanied with lively music; sound effects that include grunts, groans, and gasps; and a screen that shakes violently up and down when little dinosaurs run or jump. Narrated by the author, the rhyming questions are finally answered with a firm, "NoA dinosaur carefully raises his hand. He helps out his classmates with projects they've planned," and other admirable actions. The spread, "At recess he plays with a number of friends, and growls at the bullies till bullying ends," comes alive on the screen as a flying reptile catches a ball midair and then swoops over to snatch a startled bully and return him to the classroom. During the credits, good little dinosaurs raise their hands, work on their writing, water the plants, and play nicely at school. An added bonus is an interview with the author, who explains how she came to write the dinosaur series and communicates her love of reading and writing. Clips from the other dinosaur videos and childhood photos are interspersed. Students can write their own classroom rules after viewing. Barbara Auerbach, P.S. 217, Brooklyn, NY

ALA Booklist (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

This eighth entry (counting the two board books) in the Yolen/Teague How Do Dinosaurs series features a cast of 10 brightly colored dinosaurs that manage to dominate the double-page spreads without overwhelming them. Questions arise when the dinos are put in common school-day situations. Would dinosaurs walk to school or carpool? Would they stomp and make a fuss on the bus? Would they roughhouse and punch and disrupt the class by yelling or fidgeting with their tails in the air? Of course not. Before they leap out the door at the end of the school day, readers will realize that these dinosaurs are helpful, tidy, and protective, "growling at the bullies till the bullying ends." Yolen's short, rhyming text and Teague's irresistible, cavorting dinosaurs perfectly convey how dinosaurs could behave in school, large and powerful though they may be. Fans of the other titles in the series will welcome this new lesson on how to behave properly yet manage to remain a true dinosaur.

Kirkus Reviews

Off to school with our prehistoric pals from the popular How Do Dinosaurs . . .? series, in which familiar scenes are made riotous by the scale-skewing enormity of elementary schoolstudent dinos. As silvasaurus rushes out the door, his human mom proffers a teeny-tiny (but life-sized to Homo sapiens) brown-bag lunch and thermos. Centrosaurus can't fit in the carpool vehicle (license plate DINOCAR), so he rides on the roof. And when Herrerasaurus loses his tooth in class, he can't help but let out a celebratory yell, and all his similarly gap-toothed schoolmates share his excitement. Once again, what readers can't see in Teague's positively pop-off-the-page paintings (tails and toes that are just too long to fit, for example) is just as important as what they can. Perfect partners for Yolen's easy rhymes, they extend the text with those oh-so-appreciated labels, plenty of wit and a well-placed wink or two. The standard-sized schoolyard and show-and-tell provide plenty of opportunities for giant lizards to be acrobatic, misbehave and generally cause a ruckus, but each of these dinosaurs earns top marks and works well with others. (Picture book. 2-7)