Dinosoaring

PreS-Gr 1—An aircrew of dinosaurs boards a cargo plane and, after a long series of failed attempts, manages to get aloft. These reptiles join an air show, amaze the audience, then, after a bout of airsickness, bail out using parachutes. A book combining dinosaurs and airplanes seems like a surefire hit for the preschool crowd, but this one misses the mark. The slightly blurry gouache and watercolor illustrations often fall flat or fail to reflect the text. A few spreads pop, such as the parachute scenes, but the quality is inconsistent, and the rhyming scheme and "dinowords" soon grate: "'We're dinohuge-just look around./We'll never get this off the ground.'/But they concoct a dinoplan/That gets them cheering, 'Yes, we can!'" Dinosoaring follows two books in the same vein: Dinosailors (2003) and All Aboard the Dinotrain (2006, both Harcourt). Purchase only if those titles circulate well.—Suzanne Myers Harold, Multnomah County Library System, Portland, OR