cover image Dinosaur Christmas

Dinosaur Christmas

Jerry Pallotta, illus. by Howard McWilliam. Scholastic/Cartwheel, $12.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-545-43360-0

Santa takes a stroll down Memory Lane to the good old, old, old days when dinosaurs, not reindeer, pulled his sleigh. He offers fond and funny recollections of the dinos he tried out for the job: “Triceratops were steady and ready... but a bit slow,” he writes as a pair of them study a map and sip coffee from travel cups. Various anthropomorphic dinosaurs tromp through snowy scenes in a story that mainly shows off McWilliam’s goofy mashups of the prehistoric and the modern—from the styracosauruses wearing tool belts and hardhats as they present Santa with a list of union demands to a trio of stegosauruses strung up with Christmas lights and ornaments on a “merry, spiky, pointy Christmas.” Ages 5–7. (Sept.)