The Dinosaur in the Garden

by Deb Pilutti

Overview

After waiting millions of years, a T Rex thinks a curious girl might just find the clues he left behind, making his story part of hers.

It’s been millions of years since this dinosaur has been so excited. There’s a girl—a curious girl—exploring the land right where he used to live!

Will she be the one to find the clues he left millions of years ago?

Could she be the one to bring his story back to life?!

This lyrical picture book captures the vastness of geologic time while also showing how close the traces of the distant past can be—as long as we are curious enough to look.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593620588
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	05/21/2024
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	638,135
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Deb Pilutti wrote and illustrated Old Rock (is not boring), Ten Rules of Being a Superhero, Bear and Squirrel Are Friends, and The Secrets of Ninja School, and illustrated Idea Jar by Adam Lehrhaupt. Deb lives with her husband and their border collie, Wilson, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Follow her on Twitter @dpilutti.

Editorial Reviews

The author of 2020’s clever and engaging Old Rock (Is Not Boring) tackles the theme of geologic time from another angle. . . [The book] ends with an enticing invitation to join in dinosaur research and study. . . An engaging suggestion that hints of the past are there for the finding, if we will but look.” —Kirkus

From the Publisher

2024-02-17
A dinosaur and a curious young child make a connection over millions of years.

The author of 2020’s clever and engaging Old Rock (Is Not Boring) tackles the theme of geologic time from another angle. “I used to live here,” says her toothy theropod narrator, recalling lush and leafy prehistoric forests and encounters with other dinosaurs (“most were delicious”). But “a lot has changed,” beginning with a certain falling meteor and continuing through successive ages of oceans, mountain building, and ice to, at last, a rustic yard where a child plays, burbles with questions about nature, and finds a fossil footprint and a large tooth. “I will wait,” the patient predator concludes, “for my story to become part of your story.” And indeed, those discoveries spark further questions and sustained interest, until the child returns to the site just a little later (relatively speaking) as a grown-up paleontologist to dig out the skeleton buried beneath. In a final scene, the paleontologist presents it fully reassembled to a diverse and fascinated group of museum visitors. In Pilutti’s sweet and serene illustrations, the tan-skinned child appears to be biracial (one parent is brown-skinned, while the other is light-skinned). A closing note about fossils and the scientists who find them ends with an enticing invitation to join in dinosaur research and study—beginning, of course, with birds.

An engaging suggestion that hints of the past are there for the finding, if we will but look. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews