School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-An aircrew of dinosaurs boards a cargo plane and, after a long series of failed attempts, manages to get aloft. These reptiles join an air show, amaze the audience, then, after a bout of airsickness, bail out using parachutes. A book combining dinosaurs and airplanes seems like a surefire hit for the preschool crowd, but this one misses the mark. The slightly blurry gouache and watercolor illustrations often fall flat or fail to reflect the text. A few spreads pop, such as the parachute scenes, but the quality is inconsistent, and the rhyming scheme and "dinowords" soon grate: "'We're dinohuge-just look around./We'll never get this off the ground.'/But they concoct a dinoplan/That gets them cheering, 'Yes, we can!'" Dinosoaring follows two books in the same vein: Dinosailors (2003) and All Aboard the Dinotrain (2006, both Harcourt). Purchase only if those titles circulate well.-Suzanne Myers Harold, Multnomah County Library System, Portland, OR (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The thrill-seeking dinosaurs from Dinosailors and All Aboard the Dinotrain take to the skies. Agile, fun-to-read couplets describe their performance at an air show: "They dangle from their wide trapeze/ And dinodance on wings with ease./ The crowd below screams out for more./ They love to watch them dinosoar!" Fine's gouache and watercolor paintings have the luminance of classic landscape paintings; paired with the dinosaurs (including a pink triceratops and a stegosaurus that resembles a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle), the effect is playfully surreal. What's left for dinosaurs after skydiving? A final spread suggests that more adventures are yet to come. Ages 4-8. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
