As you read the reviews on Bookshop Talk, you'll notice that every review is positive. No, we're not a bunch of literary
pushovers who love everything we pick up; we just see no point in telling you about a book if we didn't like it.

March 2, 2012

WHEN DINOSAURS CAME WITH EVERYTHING by Elise Broach and David Small, 2007

Get a WHAT!? Free WHAT!? DINOSAURS? Just when a little boy thinks he's going to die of boredom from running errands with his mom, the most remarkable, the most stupendous thing happens. He discovers that on this day, and this day only, stores everywhere are giving away a very special treat with any purchase. No, not the usual lollipop or sticker. Something bigger. Much, MUCH bigger. It's a dream come true, except...what exactly do you do with these Jurassic treats? And how do you convince Mom to let you keep them (Goodreads)

Review by Kim Harris Thacker, writer, mommy, and Bookshop Talk Host

Some picture books are better read aloud than others. Of course, because I’m a mom, I generally read all picture books aloud, since I’m reading them to my kids. Nevertheless, some picture books rock when they’re read aloud. Elise Broach’s WHEN DINOSAURS CAME WITH EVERYTHING even won the E.B. White Read Aloud Award for its read-aloud quality. Don’t read this paragraph aloud unless you want to listen to an example of repetition run amok—I wrote “aloud” way too many times...

Moving on.

When offered the opportunity to choose a picture book to read at bedtime, my youngest daughter almost always chooses WHEN DINOSAURS CAME WITH EVERYTHING. And unlike many picture books, this one doesn’t bore me, even after the two-hundredth reading! It is clever enough to entertain adults, but simple enough in concept (and wild enough) to entertain youngsters. The illustrations are perfect. Watercolor with ink details. And I really, really, REALLY like the mom in the story. She’s cool.

To best understand how truly terrific this book is, perhaps you should zip back in time to your own childhood...

You tag along with Mommy on errands every Friday. Maybe this is okay. But more than likely, it’s boring. I know my kids get bored on Errand Day. You go to too many stores to count. In the car-seat, out of the car-seat, in the car-seat, out of the car-seat. Your shins are all scraped up from being squished into the kid-seat in the front of the shopping cart (Why don’t they make those leg-holes a little bigger?). You’ve shopped long past the dropping point. And then Mommy sees a sign: Buy One Get One Free. Of course, you can’t read the sign, because you’re wee. Still, you know that glint in Mommy’s eye. It’s the BOGO glint. She has hit her second wind. Or her third. You flop back in your stroller, defeated, or you melt into a puddle of kid in the sidewalk (a puddle of kid that is still firmly attached to Mommy by a wrist-leash). Whatever you choose to do, even as you do it, you know it won’t be enough.

But then, something wonderful happens. Mommy buys one (a dress, a pair of shoes, or, as in Elise Broach’s book, a box of a dozen doughnuts), and she gets something you want for free! Not just something you want, but something you wouldn’t normally be allowed to have. Like a dinosaur. Life is soooooooooo good.

Just don’t go to the neighborhood diner, because they’re not having your ordinary “Buy One Entree Get a Second Entree of Equal or Lesser Value FREE” deal. They’re giving away T-Rexes.

Now come back to the present . . . and buy WHEN DINOSAURS CAME WITH EVERYTHING!

Market: Children’s Picture Book
Language: None
Sensuality: None
Violence: None
Mature Themes: None


Book formats:
Paperback
e-book

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love this picture book! Like you said, it's still fun to read aloud after the twenty-bazillioneth time.

MKHutchins said...

This looks great! My kids love dinosaurs...going to go check it out.