Oi Dinosaurs! by Kes Gray & Jim Field
Another in the series of ‘oi’ books will be well received, children recalling the humour in the story, the hilarious illustrations and the inherent silliness of the whole. I for one, love them.
Dog asks the frog and the cat what dinosaurs sat on. But the frog imperiously tells them that sitting was not invented then. Dog is stunned, imagine having such a huge bottom and not be able to sit. But says dog, dinosaurs could not imagine anything because of the smallness of their brains. After this discussion the book begins the pattern followers of the ‘oi’ books are familiar with. Rhyming pairs of lines introduce the name of a dinosaur and something which rhymes with it. Children willl laugh out loud at the resulting humour, not only with the words, but the hilarious illustrations by Jim Field, depicting several dinosaurs in the most precarious of positions, sitting down. Pterosaurs didn’t sit on bendy straws, tricerotopses didn’t sit on lollipopses and diplodocus didn’t sit on crocus. Children will love predicting the rhyming words and find lots of humour in the wonderful illustrations.
The discussion between the three animals becomes more and more involved as they ponder on when animals did know how to sit and what they sat on. Their discussion flows on to prehistoric animals, the animals of the modern era, leading to when they learnt to sit. All is great fun, and the last couple of pages turns the discussion neatly around to a hilarious comment by the dog.
Anything about dinosaurs captures readers’ attention, and this one full of humour will tickle their imaginations. Not only does it reinforce the names of the dinosaurs, but the end papers also show images of many of them, which kids will use to test each other. I love the sabre tooth sitting on his stone age mat, and the titan boas on a ride on mowers. Every page is full of lively funny words, captured beautifully by the illustrations. Children and adults alike will have lots of fun with this book.
Themes: Read aloud, Humour, Dinosaurs.
Fran Knight