This week, I am reviewing a collection of stories by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. The story pictured above is How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? but my review will span the entire series and include How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?, How Do Dinosaurs Play With Their Friends?, and How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Rooms? These books are all essentially the same and have the same premise. The author and illustrator is the same and the pages that I've chosen to highlight could honestly be any page in any book. I really like these books when I don't give them too much thought, but as I begin to more deeply ponder the purpose and meaning of this series of books, I can't help but think about how stupid they are.
The setting: 65 million years ago
The characters: Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Dilophosaurus, Braciosaurus, Brontosaurus, Teradactyl, Kentosaurus, Gorgosaurus, Spinosaurus, Lambeosaurus, Deinonychus, Polacanthus, Obscurosaurus, Randomosaurus, and Madeuposaurus Rex
Yeah, that's right Mark! I bet at least one of your supposed "dinosaurs" in one of your books is completely made up! Prove that it isn't, then!
Okay, this is not how you clean up your room unless you are autistic (not that there is anything wrong with that). Also, how is lining up your toys cleaning up your room? Somebody is going to trip over those cars. You should put them in a box or a drawer or in the closet. Putting them in the middle of the floor in rows is no more clean then putting them in the middle of the floor not in rows. This is counterproductive.
I have never claimed to be father of the year other than the time on Facebook when I said that you should just give me my father of the year award, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't let my kids play with a freaking T-Rex! "He treats everyone in the friendliest way." I think you are confusing a Tyrannosaurus, which is a 23 foot tall, 8 ton meat eating monster that lived 65 million years ago and that is the most prolific carnivore in the history of time, more terrifying than any fictional creature conceived of in book or film, that can devour 500 pounds of triceratops in one bite with this guy:
I'm pretty sure that Jane and Mark went through a lot of trouble to make sure that dinosaurs are portrayed in the most accurate way possible from the name of the dinosaur right down to the color and relative size of the dinosaur and then completely ignored every single aspect of the dinosaur's actual behavior and instinct. That Tyrannosaurus would eat that kid and slide in one chomp!
Introducing the all new Ford Escape. Has the most available leg room of any car, house, or building in existence. It's a crossover. It crosses over the line between reality and utter absurdity. Also, is that dinosaur drinking out of a sippy cup?
More realism being portrayed in these books. A triceratops weighs about 7 tons. This mom is dragging a 7 ton triceratops by one foot. Seems totally possible.
This is the biggest doctor's office I have ever seen. Just a side note. While referencing all of this dinosaur stuff through Google, every time I type in the name of a dinosaur, the third autocomplete that pops up is that name of the dinosaur that I typed in followed by "not real." What the hell is wrong society that people think dinosaurs didn't exist?
Okay, so why the heck do these books exist? I'm going to make the leap from dinosaurs to kids to explain the purpose of these books. Ready.... kids like dinosaurs. They are cool creatures because they don't exist. They are like unicorns or fairies. It doesn't matter that dinosaurs existed at one time. They are the same thing as leprechauns to the mind of a child. These books show dinosaurs doing bad behaviors and then saying that dinosaurs don't do that behavior so that at a later time when your obnoxious child does the same behavior you can say, "does a dinosaur throw down his cup at the table? No, he doesn't. Dinosaurs are nice to people, so you should be nice to people like dinosaurs." HOWEVER, that is just a giant load of bullshit for 3 reasons: 1) dinosaurs and people never existed at the same time so dinosaurs could never have interacted with the human environment in that way. Dinosaurs spent all day fighting and foraging for food so that they wouldn't die; 2) if dinosaurs existed now, they would destroy EVERYTHING! They would eat people and knock over buildings and run over buses and they would never once ever say "sorry" to anybody (didn't you see Jurassic Park 2?); and 3) if you need to use the fake made-up behavior of dinosaurs to control the behavior of your child, you are a shitty parent. Just give up and let your child throw their cup on the ground and not say they are sorry because one day your child will be smarter than you and they will remember the time you lied about dinosaurs being nice to people, and when they find out that the dinosaur thing was a lie, they will no longer have any incentive to have normal behaviors. Instead, give the real reasons to have good behavior like "this is the way normal, non-criminals behave in public" or "pick your cup up because you're making a mess, and when you make a mess, you have to clean it up because I don't want to spend all day cleaning up after you because then mommy and daddy are too tired to go to work and make money that we use to buy you nice toys and invest in a 529 plan so that we can afford to pay for your college education." There are real reasons for your children to not act like animals. "Because dinosaurs behave" is just a complete lie.
In summation, dinosaurs are magical beings that you should aspire to be like. Once I realized this was the point of these books, I decided that these books suck. They spend too much time depicting dinosaurs behaving in a negative way and saying "don't do this" rather than depicting dinosaurs behaving positively and saying "do this." Unfortunately, Lily loves them, and she gives them 5 out of 5 stars. You can pick up any one of these books at Amazon for various amounts of money. Happy reading!
How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food review
How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon review
How Do Dinosaurs Play With Their Friends review
How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Rooms review
How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night review
How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Dogs review
How Do Dinosaurs Learn Their Colors review
How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Birthday review
How Do Dinosaurs Count To Ten review
How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You review
How Do Dinosaurs Go To School review
How Do Dinosaurs Laugh Out Loud review
How Do Dinosaurs Play All Day review
How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Cats review
How Do Dinosaurs Stay Safe review
How Do Dinosaurs Eat Cookies review
How Do Dinosaurs Learn To Read review
How Do Dinosaurs Say I'm Mad
How Do Dinosaurs Go To The Doctor review
No comments:
Post a Comment