R.S.V.P.? Do Not Take Your Dragon to Dinner by Julie Gassman

IT'S A SPECIAL OCCASION. IT'S TIME FOR A TREAT.
TIME TO DRESS UP AND GO OUT TO EAT.

But despite how much you love your, er, pet, most of them are not an asset to a special dinner party at a restaurant. And of all those special family "friends," one high on the list to leave at home is your dragon!

Dragons are not dedicated to dainty dining etiquette!

A WING IN YOUR FACE! A TAIL IN A DRINK!
AND WORST OF ALL, THAT DISTINCT DRAGON STINK!

Dragons are also prone to slurp and burp at will. Their incredibly messy eating and rude noises are disgusting enough to clear the restaurant so effectively that your dinner party soon becomes a private party. But maybe there's a better way to celebrate.

If you party at home, the dragon can be helpful. He can light all the birthday candles with one breath! Then you can all exhale and enjoy the meal. Maybe your dragon will even learn some table manners--like using his napkin to wipe his mouth instead of the whole tablecloth, eating with the appropriate silverware instead of his claws. and when to say "Please" and "Thank you!"

PRACTICE THIS OFTEN AND YOUR ETIQUETTE BEGINNER
WILL SOON BE TAKING YOU OUT TO DINNER!

Julie Gassman's Do Not Take Your Dragon to Dinner (Capstone Press, 2017) slips in a small lesson in manners along with her comic description of the dangers of dining out with a dragon. The author favors jolly rhyming couplets, which scan more neatly than her protagonist eats, and her rhymes and rhythm make this one a pleasure to read, aloud or silently. Taking a page from Jane Yolen's and Mark Teague's How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? (Book & CD), (see review here), Gassman's newest puts in a plug for proper table manners by slyly pointing out the gross-out factor of bad dining habits, all the while keeping kids in stitches, gleefully chiming in on the tag line, "DO NOT TAKE YOUR DRAGON TO DINNER!" The broad humor here is helped greatly by artist Andy Elkerton's exaggerated sight gags of the downside of dining with dragons. Share it with Sally Lloyd-Wright's Being a Pig Is Nice: A Child's-Eye View of Manners for a funny take on the downside of dining without rules.

On the Night Before Christmas: How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas? by Jane Yolen

On the eve of the big day, there’s no mother’s child who never gets hyper, antsy or wild. So what does a dinosaur do when it’s time to nestle snugly in bed?

DOES HE EAT ALL THE COOKIES LEFT OUT FOR ST. NICK?
DOES HE GIVE ALL THE CANDY CANES ONE SLOPPY LICK?

It’s that time of year when kids alternate between being angelic and slightly crazed, and in Jane Yolen’s and Mark Teague’s latest saurian saga, How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas? (Blue Sky Press, 2012), those dino kids are shown doing all those wild and crazy things inspired by the season. As in all of their elegant etiquette lessons, unusual dinosaur juveniles are shown, potentially doing all the things that no one wants them to do at the holiday season–dumping the contents of the stockings on the floor, breaking the ornaments and knocking down the just-decorated tree. Is that how a dinosaur should say “Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad”?

Of course not.

HE CAROLS WITH CARE.
HE HELPS TRIM THE TREE
SO NO BRANCHES ARE BARE!

And when it’s about time for Santa to come to town, he goes up to bed with nary a frown. And when Santa’s sleigh lands and the snow lies deep, he’s upstairs in bed and sound asleep. At least, that what good little dinos do in the latest of Yolen’s How Do Dinosaurs...series, as told in Yolen’s meter-perfect verses and Mark Teague’s delightful illustrations, which show unusual dinosaurs (such as a gorgeously red and green feathered gigantoraptor) and which, as always, provide the name of each ditzy dinosaur concealed somewhere in the large two-page spreads for sharp-eyed kids to spy out, as well as reprised in their dinosaur-studded endpapers.

After many titles in their trademark series, Yolen and Teague have not lost their touch. How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas? offers a subtle exposition on the right way to do St. Nick and Mom and Dad proud on Christmas Eve. “Uproarious hypotheticals,” as Publishers Weekly succinctly puts it

For a dynamic dino drama duo, pair this one with Yolen's and Teague’s brand-new companion book, How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah? (Blue Sky Press, 2012).

Press 2 for Dinosaur: I Speak Dinosaur! by Jed Henry

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO SPEAK DINOSAUR?

I DO!

DINOSAURS NEVER SAY "THANK YOU."

THEY JUST SAY "MUCKUS RUCKUS!"

Ever since "Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one sort or another," many a bad boy has left his (claw) print in picture books. Letting your feelings rip with a bit of dinosaur speak is one way to deal with things you don't like. Sometimes even for grown-up boys (and girls), it feels good to ROAR!

But even a rough-and-tough tyrannosaurus or a king of all the wild things needs better company than others just like him. When it gets lonely, even would-be prehistoric critters need to find friends, and they finally figure out that being a T-Rex isn't exactly the way to being king of the hill. In fact...

"IT'S KIND OF LONELY SOMETIMES."

In Jed Henry's brand-new I Speak Dinosaur (Abrams, 2012) our dino boy makes that voyage back to find that if he wants other kids (and his parents) to want him around, he's got to remember to say please and thank you at all the right times. And if Henry's anger-venting dinosaur boy looks like he's having entirely too much fun roaring, it's good to reinforce the message by pairing this one with Jane Yolen's and Mark Teague's best-selling How Do Dinosaurs Play with Their Friends?