Size Matters: I'm Big! by Kate and Jim McMullan

YOU'RE LOOKING AT A SUPER-SORRY SAUROPOD.

WOKE UP LATE.

MY HERD WAS GONE.

SOMEONE COULD HAVE NUDGED ME.

Sure, sauropods are BIG. Really BIG. But there's a reason they hang around in herds, and when our young sauropod wakes up to find the sun high and himself alone, he is right to see the gravity of the situation.

But our sauropod has some advantages. First he stretches tall above the trees and looks around for his gang.

CHECK THE NECK! FIVE STORIES HIGH!

THE WEATHER HERE? SUNNY WITH A CHANCE OF...

PTEROSAURS! AWWKKK!

And it's not just those sky zoomers that give him the shakes. It seems like there are some carnivores around for whom his size might just mean a bigger meal.

YIKES! PREDATORS! WHAT DO I DO? RUN?

Well, no. The best the apprentice sauropod can do is galumph along in a slow lumber.

WHAT DO I DO? HIDE?

HOLE NOT DEEP ENOUGH! ROCK WAY TOO SMALL! CAN'T HIDE!

WHAT DO I DO? FIGHT?

FANGS? CLAWS? SPIKES? WHO'S GOT 'EM? NOT ME!

It's too late now to evolve all those protective characteristics. Our little saur has to use what he's got, and what he's got is something special.

I'M BIG!

Kate and Jim McMullan's latest in their rib-tickling series of superlative heroes (see their earlier I'm Bad!, and I'm Dirty!) is their equally funny I'm Big! (Balzer & Bray, 2010), in which their superlative-sized young hero learns that standing up to the bad guys and going with what you've got is the best defense. The McMullan's bright pink, purple, and blue hero finds out that that he's got the right stuff after all, and when he finally rejoins his family and friends, he's got just the hint of a swagger in his galumph!

Familiar dinosaurs fill the prehistoric landscape, and young readers will find a few super-sized snickers and chuckles here as well. The McMullans' other protagonists, as typlified by their odoriferous but industrious and honorable little garbage truck in I Stink!, all proudly proclaim, like Popeye, "I yam what I yam," and do what they do best in a way which will resonate with kids while giving them a few galumphing giggles along the way.