1-2-3 Dinosaurs Bite: A Prehistoric Counting Book

by American Museum of Natural History

Overview

Gobble, gobble, munch, and crunch: watch the pages disappear!  Five hungry dinosaurs—from mighty little Microraptor to colorful Carnotaurus—sink their teeth into this tasty novelty book, created with the American Museum of Natural History and Caldecott-honor winner Steve Jenkins. Kids can count along as the dinosaurs take bite-sized chunks out of each page. The number of bites matches the counting number on each spread! Fun facts about the dinosaurs—and what they liked to eat—appear at the end, along with a listing of dinosaur details from 1-10.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781402777226
Publisher:	Union Square Kids
Publication date:	10/02/2012
Pages:	18
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

Steve Jenkins lives in Boulder, CO, and has written and illustrated nearly 20 picture books, including the Caldecott Honor-winning What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? His books have been called stunning, eye-popping, inventive, gorgeous, masterful, extraordinary, playful, irresistible, compelling, engaging, accessible, glorious, and informative. To learn more about Steve and his books, visit stevejenkinsbooks.com.
 
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City is one of the largest and most respected museums in the world. Since the Museum was founded in 1869, its collections have grown to include more than 32 million specimens and artifacts relating to the natural world and human cultures. The Museum showcases its collections in 46 exhibition halls, and behind the scenes a scientific staff of more than 200 carries out cutting-edge research. Millions of people from around the world visit the Museum each year. Visit the Museum online at amnh.org.

Editorial Reviews

Jenkins’s characteristically detailed collages take on the ever-popular subject of dinosaurs in a board book created in collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Things begin promisingly, as different dinosaurs take jagged “bites” out of each spread, counting up to five. Numbers six through 10, however, are deployed in a rush on a single page (“6 hungry dinosaurs are chewing up this book! 7 colors on this page are waiting to be gobbled up”); closing pages offer details on dinosaurs’ nonbook eating habits and a second opportunity to count to 10. Simultaneously available: Spot the Animals: A Life-the-Flap Book of Colors. Ages 3–7. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

This dinosaur counting book doesn't completely add up. Jenkins provides his signature cut-paper collage for this prehistoric outing with a text attributed to the American Museum of Natural History. Five of the page spreads feature a different dinosaur species, such as Microraptor, Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus. Readers are invited to count the ever-increasing bites on the page supposedly made by the dinosaurs (they are created by die cut). While a clever gimmick, the book design serves it poorly. The jagged bite marks are difficult to count, since other bite marks from subsequent pages show through, as well as stray images and partial lines of text. While the book lets readers count to five spread by spread, the next page rushes the counting the rest of the way to 10 with an abstract list of items to count. It is unclear what and where the "8 jagged bites that make these pages disappear..." are. The next page is a little more useful, with one sentence of dietary facts for each of the featured dinosaurs. The last spread reuses the art that has come before to give readers more items to count, but this feels like an afterthought. Four pages of backmatter are too much for a board book, and a more thoughtful design would have served the entire package better. Despite the star power here, skip this one. (Board book. 2-4)

Kirkus Reviews