My Dinosaur

Bathed in moonlight and magic, Weatherby's first solo effort (he illustrated Jim Murphy's Dinosaur for a Day and The Last Dinosaur) effectively blends fantasy and realism in an original tale of a girl's nocturnal adventures with her unusual playmate. The story generates an instant appeal with its unlikely pairing of a diminutive, pink-nightgown-clad towhead and a benign creature so enormous it only appears once in its entirety (readers mostly glimpse just the tip of a tail, an eye, a head and neck, and so on). Weatherby amplifies the allure with his fetching cast of extras: fantastical fish, sleepy-eyed owls, a family of plump little raccoons who watch the activity from a nearby branch. Impressionistic acrylics overlayed with metallic paints yield interesting visual textures, both velvety in their softness and marble-like in their surface patterns. The setting-a mist-dappled forest-further enhances the bewitched mood, and when the girl comes down to breakfast the following morning with leaves in her hair, readers will want to believe that something extraordinary truly has transpired in this enchanted evening escapade. Ages 3-7. (Mar.)