Dinosaurs?! by Lila Prap (review)

In a surprisingly effective literary device, a family of chickens is schooled by a knowledgeable red hen on their common ancestry. Improbable as it seems, they are descendants of dinosaurs. Each double-page spread features an oversized picture of a dino or dino relative, framed by the chickens’ discourse. Confronted with a view of Stegosaurus, mother hen marvels at the plates along its spine. Were they ears? The rooster posits they may have been fans for cooling. Their chick goes with the idea of a backscratcher, and the hatchling just cheeps about great-great-great uncle’s big body and tiny head. The red hen, however, has the straight story, and with some support from a few lines of text along the bottom of the page, she explains how scientists once thought those plates were arranged like roof tiles, but now believe they stood upright for heating and cooling. Red hen is admirably up-to-date on her info, and although the pictures sport a dopey amiability more toylike than scientific, they clearly convey the features under consideration. Issues of feathers and coloration, the “Oviraptor” misnomer, probable uses of the Pteranodon’s bony crest and Parasaurolophus’ tubelike head gear, and evidence that “birds evolved from one of these feathered dinosaurs” are all included in this import (first published in the U.S. in 2010), tackling many of the questions that may remain unaddressed in older dino books lingering on the shelves.