Dinosaur Farm

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

You think you've got it tough? Try working on a dinosaur farm!

From the author of The Journey Home (9781843652090) - Shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2013 (winner announced in March 2013), Junior Magazine Design Awards (best Picture Book and Best New Talent categories) and the Cambridgeshire Picture Book Award 2013! The first UK recipient of the amazing Sendak Fellowship and one fifth of the Zombie Collective (zombiecollective.co.uk) Great fun for sharing and talking about. How would you round-up a herd of unruly triceratops?

Jack and his pet dino-dog get up early each morning to tend to the duties on the dinosaur farm. First the pterodactyl eggs need collecting. Then the triceratops need to be let out to graze. Of course the diplodocus need a good scrub after their mud bath - they do get very messy!

As the day goes on, Jack becomes more battered and bruised by his encounters - the pterodactyl were not the most co-operative when it came to collecting their eggs, the diplodocus's bath time was a bit more exciting than it was meant to be and the boisterous tricerotops sent him flying as they rushed out of their pen! Exhausted after his daily chores, Jack collapses into bed.

But wait! Did he close the gate to the T-Rex pen?!

And if you've fallen in love with Dino Dog? So have we. Join him on his own adventures coming soon!

Age range: 3-6 years

Approx 300 words

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

It's hard work being a farmer. True enough, but when the farm animals are dinosaurs (along with a few carnivorous-looking plants) the challenges ramp up considerably. Those critters eat a lot and require plenty of elbow grease to stay clean--the manure pile alone boggles the imagination (while also tickling readers' funny bones, of course). The farmer doesn't exactly take it all in stride, but he's diligent and professional from sunup to sundown and still capable of appreciating how new life is always beginning on a farm. At book's end, it's clear that all the dinosaurs under his care love him--maybe a little too much. Preston-Gannon's (How to Lose a Lemur) layered images are rendered in rich, loamy colors, and her consistent use of a single plane gives a good sense of a landscape where there's always another chore to be done. To her great credit, the word dinosaur never appears in the text, which makes the improbable scenario even funnier and more meaningful: whether it's an ant farm or one filled with terrible (but cute) lizards, Your farm needs you! Ages 3--5. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

School Library Journal Review

PreS-K-Chronicling the daily chores of a farmer, the simple text could apply to a typical farm. The pictures, however, let readers know that this farm is anything but typical. The farmer's day goes as expected: he wakes up early to feed, wash, and clean up after the animals, but the responsibilities are a little different when the animals are all dinosaurs. There are not a lot of chores mentioned, and because there is little text, it is the illustrations that really provide humor and tell the story. At the end of the day, the exhausted farmer forgets to lock the gate, and the dinosaurs crawl into bed with him. The collagelike illustrations are bold in both color and size. The book presents a silly concept, and while the execution can feel forced at times, young children may find humor in the artwork. Both dinosaur books and farm books circulate readily, so this combination title should fare well. Recommended for larger collections.- Emily E. Lazio, The Smithtown Special Library District, NY (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

First published in the UK in 2013, this day-on-the-farm book takes us through a farmer's chores from sunup to sunset. There's one huge factor complicating all the chores: dinosaurs. Not very scary-looking but very big, they have overrun the whole dang farm. The farmer uses the second person to describe his duties, starting with how you have to feed the animals: instead of the expected chicks and ducks and geese crowding around, this time it's a stampede of stegosauruses chasing the farmer and his yummy bale of hay. Next, the farmer washes the necks of looming allosauruses, shovels a small mountain of triceratops manure, and lugs a steak bigger than himself with a T. rex in full, slavering pursuit. The humor comes from the completely deadpan style of the farmer describing the chores, seemingly oblivious to the huge insects, plants, and dinosaurs surrounding him. The collage illustrations add texture and underscore the humor. Dinosaur-crazed children will love this romp.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2014 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Daily farm chores are anything but routine when the livestock runs to stegosaurs and the odd T. Rex. Not that you'd be able to tell that last bit from the blandly generic narrative: "It's hard work being a farmer. / You have to wake very early every morning, and you must make sure you have a nice, big breakfast before your day begins." Presaging what's to come, though, that "breakfast" is a soft-boiled egg the size of a small watermelon. As the overalls-clad farmer (more a rancher it would seem) sets about carrying hay and mucking out a mountain of malodorous, brown "mess," each seemingly typical task is witnessed by flocks of smiling dinos (or, in the garden scene, carnivorous-looking flora). Throughout, the farmer looks dismayed in Preston-Gannon's cut-paper collages, and serving T. Rex an oversized steak isn't the only moment he seems one step away from being a goner. In the end, though, it's all really a sweet, rural idyll that ends with the farmer and his prehistoric charges crowded into his moonlit bedroom in a collective snooze. A bit of dino drollery for the diaper-clad. (Picture book. 2-4) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.