What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night by Refe Tuma, Susan Tuma
My rating: 5/5 cats
IT’S NOVEMBER, Y’ALL!!!
with all the garbage going on in my life right now, i forgot that it was dinovember! time to catch up!!
https://twitter.com/dinovember?lang=en
another item to add to the list of “ways in which i was failed as a child.”
1) not born a redheaded princess
2) no pony. not even one.
3) made to eat canned green beans. seriously – i know it was the 70’s but COME ON! we had a GARDEN!!
4) never once woke up to a tableau of dinosaurs behaving badly, complete with smashed dishes and dino-graffiti all over the walls.
because the four children belonging to the authors of this book get to wake up to such tableaux THIRTY DAYS OUT OF EACH YEAR!!! and probably have never even heard of canned green beans.
this book is, i think, a book of professionally-photographed reenactments of previous dinovembers, judging by the impeccable lighting and staging compared against the images available on their own internet places like here and here, and also the fact that so many of these pictures seem to be catching the dinosaurs in the midst of their tomfoolery, rather than a scene being discovered the morning after by lucky, cherished children.
for example, detective karen notes that this sink hasn’t overflowed and the bubbles are still fresh and frothy
and this popcorn in still in midair:
which reminds me – so very many of these stagings involve butter. so much butter wasted. but also – not smooshy as it would have been after several hours.
and whatever is happening here definitely hasn’t been there for too long.
i don’t even know where you get enough ice to do that, let alone thinking you can fool the reader of this book into believing this was a stage set and left for the kids to find in the morning. a kid looks at that picture and thinks “FUN!” a grown-up looks at it and thinks “who is going to pay that bill?” thankfully, “FUN!” was my first thought, so i’m not quite grown yet.
and while it must be so magical to wake up to mischievous dinosaurs every morning for a month (although i have no way of knowing for sure because of how shamefully i was deprived of dinosaur stagings) i have a couple of reservations about the irresponsible behavior these dinosaurs exhibit.
never mind how much food they waste
or the dirrrrty-play they encourage:
but this – THIS!!!
this is crazytown!! this is a scene you stage for children ranging in ages from 1-7??? i mean, i understand you wanna thin your herd, considering how high your food-and-freezer bills must be, but this is basically an encouragement to misadventure! dcs would see this as a confession. watch your back.
i love that a great deal of the time, the funniest parts of the scenes are things that are happening off to one side or in the background. there’s a lot going on in here, and i love it.
this is my favorite of all the dinosaurs:
because his expression can either be rage or terror or glee depending on what is going on around him.
and i liked this bit of evolutionary cannibalism
but most of all, i like that this book finally taught me what killed the dinosaurs:
“food” poisoning.
guess i won’t be going extinct anytime soon!
great pictures, usually funny captions, genius idea.
i will leave my door unlocked for you please.
also, LGM
THIS IS THE LAST DAY OF DINOVEMBER!
(to be sung to the tune of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX78GNGnCm0)
