Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
— William Shakespeare
This light romp from Deborah Bruss and Matt Forest Esenwine has loads of laughs as dinos try wrapping presents and baking cakes in Don’t Ask a Dinosaur. The text has loads of those tough dino names, all with dots to separate the syllables into pronounceable snack-sizes. And it scans smoothly and rhymes! I know, I couldn’t believe it either. Plus, Louie Chin did a wonderful job bringing the dinos to vivid but not-too-scary life.
Notes: Matt gave me a sneak peek at the book, but I believe it’s newly out this week. If you have a tyke with a dino-fixation, you will soon be the cool parent who can pronounce all those tongue-twisting names.
Writing Tip: Pair unexpected things for humor value, like dinosaurs and birthday parties. Like, don’t ask a tiger to watch your baby brother. If you think of a funny pairing, please leave it in the comments.
Happy Poetry Friday and thanks to Tabatha Yeatts at the Opposite of Indifference for hosting!
36 thoughts on “A Book by the Brook — Don’t Ask a Dinosaur”
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Friendly Fairy Tales 
Thanks for you review. Length doesn’t matter – it’s the content that’s important.
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People appreciate brevity, I find. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by.
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prononceable snack sizes. ha!
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🙂 It might be a micro review, but I hope it’s not boring. 😉
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Thanks for sharing, Brenda. “Don’t Ask a Dinosaur” sounds like something my grandson would say and a book he’d enjoy. As for a pairing, maybe don’t ask a skunk to clean your house.
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LOL I must remember not to ask a skunk to clean my house! What a mistake that would be.
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Thank you for sharing this “dino”mite book, Brenda! I think your writing tip sounds fun! Also, I appreciate the words of the writerly wisdom that you offered me this week. It’ s so important to remember to be a patient writer, trusting the words will come in due time.
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I believe they do. It’s always slower than I wish. 🙂
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I think a rhino and a hummingbird would have an unlikely friendship!
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There you go. And make one of them obsessed with shoes. 🙂
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Matt and Deborah’s book sounds like a winner! When you asked for an unexpected pairing, for some reason a pizza-making penguin popped into my head!
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Wonderful! If I were a penguin, I’d still love pizza. 🙂
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Hi Brenda, nice review of Matt and Deborah’s book, I’m a big dino fan myself. Here’s a unexpected pairing: Don’t ask a crow to be your locksmith, you may end up locked out forever! Thanks.
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Nice one! I can see that crow flying away with your key, and cawing-cawing heartily.
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Wonderful Shakespeare quote. It sets up the incongruity in your post wonderfully. I don’t have an original incongruous example, but Nikki Giovanni’s poem “I Wrote a Good Omelet” is filled with them.
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I’ll look for her poem. The title is wonderful.
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Reading about this book makes me (almost) wish I had a dino-infatuated kid in the house again! Maybe I’ll just borrow one for a read aloud!
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Neither of my boys was ever dino-obsessed, but they had friends who were. Mine were more into trucks. They like Trash Trucks.
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Those long dino names are indeed tricky — Deborah and Matt made it all work so well in their fun book. 🙂
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Took a lot of work to make it so smooth, I imagine.
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My youngest granddaughter and I got the book this week and we loved it, so full of laughs! I’m glad you’re sharing it today, Brenda!
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Such a thoughtful thing to do, Linda. You must be the best grandmama.
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I never thought of doing unexpected pairings to add humor value. That’s one good writing tip. It brings in silliness and fun, all i have in my head at the moment is Don’t ask a cat to make you a hat, it’ll be with scratch.
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LOL I love it, it’s great! My cat would have sat on any hat, decorating it with hair and marking it with holes.
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It scans smoothly and rhymes?? It teaches how to pronounce the names easily?? My hat is off!!
You want another unexpected pairing? Okay, how about don’t ask a pirate to be your dentist? Anything could happen!
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LOL Kiss your gold teeth goodbye! Love it!
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Thanks, Brenda – I haven’t seen this one up close and personal yet, but glad it’s getting all this fun attention! Sounds like a kid-hit for sure.
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I do think kids will love it.
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Thanks for sharing about the new book Don’t Ask a Dinosaur. What a great title, huh?! I am looking forward to reading it in the near future. Sounds like a fun book.
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It’s fun, for sure.
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Great tip – It’s interesting how pairing unexpected things has humor values.
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We all need humor, like vitamins. A belly laugh a day. 🙂
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Thank you so much for sharing this review, Brenda, I appreciate it! I’m glad you enjoyed the book, and hope your readers do, too..
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Always a pleasure to read one of your books.
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I love funny pairings!
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It’s a wonderful book.
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