Just Hatched! Dinosaur Kisses by David Ezra Stein

Dinah the Dinosaur has just hatched, after way too long in that egg. Shaking the eggshell off her head, she eagerly heads off to see the world, doin' what comes naturally to a baby dino.

STOMP!

Okay, stomping grass is... just okay.

Then Dinah sees two fish in the pond... kissing. Now that looks like fun. She tries a head bump first to get in the mood.

WHOMP!   

OOPS. She spies a little lungfish crossing her path.

STOMP! 

This relationship thing needs bit of fine tuning.  Then Dinah sees a big dinosaur and closes in for a kiss on his nearest part--his posterior.

CHOMP! 

Ooops again! The big dino is obviously bummed.. Maybe someone smaller?

Then Dinah spots a tiny dino, way littler than she is.   She puckers up.  He puckers up.  Finally, things are going the way they should.

CHOMP! ! !

"Whoopsy," said Dinah, somewhat deflated. "Not so good."

It's back to the hatchery for little Dinah, just in time to try out her moves with a new-hatched sibling, in David Ezra Stein's just-published giggle-grabber, Dinosaur Kisses (Candlewick Press, 2013). With a text limited to less than ten discrete words, the focus here is totally on the Caldecott-winning Stein's expressive illustrations. Dinah the Dino is the quintessential innocent but regrettably blunderbuss toddler, the type who acts first and thinks about it later. Her prehistoric world sports little spouting volcanoes and a sulfurous backdrop, and Stein's heavy black line and orange-toned palette are the perfect choice to set off Dinah's steamroller approach to relating to others, while her body language and facial expressions will telegraph to little readers the predictable results of her over-eager overtures. This is a book that kids of a certain age will instinctively understand and love.

David Ezra Stein is also the author of the award-winning Interrupting Chicken and Ol' Mama Squirrel.