cover image How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas?

How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas?

Jane Yolen, illus. by Mark Teague. Scholastic/Blue Sky, $16.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-545-41678-8

Continuing to follow the successful blueprint of the long-running How Do Dinosaurs books, Yolen and Teague pose the possibility of dinosaurs wreaking merry havoc on Christmas Eve. Uproarious hypotheticals—do dinosaurs rip open presents, “shake up the tree,” or eat all the cookies left out for Santa?—give way to portraits of the dinos’ angelic behavior in the second half. Yolen’s characteristically wry verse is flawless in its rhyme and rhythm, and as in the earlier outings, the art’s buttoned-up 1950s fashions and furnishings provide a comical visual contrast to the outlandish, brightly colored dinosaurs. Simultaneously available: How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah? Up to age 4. (Sept.)