Back to School? What the Dinosaurs Did At School by Refe and Susan Tuma

HAVE YOU EVER COME HOME FROM SCHOOL TO FIND YOUR DINOSAURS SOMEWHERE ELSE THAN WHERE YOU LEFT THEM?

Those pesky nocturnal plastic prehistoric reptiles are at it again.

This time they have sneaked out of their cabinet at night and clambered into your backpack, waiting by the door, all ready for the school day to come.

Smuggling toys into school is not allowed. But these stowaway dinos are truly stealthy. A few minutes alone in the cubbies, and they are free to roam. They hide until school is out, and everyone has gone. Then...

DINOSAURS ARE LOOSE IN THE SCHOOL!

They hit the supplies cabinet first, and have their very own arts and crafts festival, using up most of the paints and leaving the brushes matted and drying stiff. They snack on paper and knock all the books off their shelves. The library shelves are next to get the same treatment.

Moving along, they head for the gym, where they get the balls rolling--soccer balls, kickballs, basketballs, softballs, all over the floor.

NO MATTER WHAT WE DO, WE HAVE TO KEEP THOSE DINOSAURS OUT OF THE....

Uh-oh, they've already found the janitor's closet. Mops, buckets, cleaning sprays, and oh, no, something white and foamy is floating everything out onto the floor of the hall.

They hit the science lab and find all the wrong stuff!

OH, NO! DINOSAURS, DON'T MIX THOSE CHEMICALS!

But then--catastrophe strikes the cafeteria. The dinosaurs have discovered bowls of spaghetti and pots of marinara sauce! It's a dinosaur dinner disaster!

If the teachers find this mess, your dinosaurs will be doomed to the dreaded--

DRAWER OF NO RETURN!

Yes, if the teachers catch them in the act, your dinos are doomed to that desk drawer where forbidden toys go in but never come out, in Refe and Susan Tuma's second book, What the Dinosaurs Did at School (Little, Brown and Company, 2017), the sequel to their popular hit, What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night. The Tumas, famous for their humorous tableaux composed of a full set of toy dinosaurs, put them to good use in this funny story of prehistoric monsters running amok in an elementary school. With the comic photos of their colorful toy dinos shown making merry mischief in an elementary school, new students, especially new Kindergartners, will giggle at the dinosaurs' doings while actually getting a vicarious tour of the school along the way. Going on a schoolwide hunt for dinosaurs may become a new first-day-of-school tour tradition. As Publishers Weekly opines, "The compositions are excellent, the props adorable... and the hyperbolic narration sustains a fever pitch."

Share this one with the similarly themed The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School (see reviews here).