The Mine-o-saur does not like to play nicely — and that doesn’t win him any friends in the school yard. Soon the Mine-o-saur is lonely. But will the other dinos want to give him a chance when the Mine-o-saur is ready to give back all their stuff and apologize?
Young readers will love these little dinosaurs and will have fun chanting along with the Mine-o-saur’s clever rhymes, even as they absorb a lesson about sharing. Join all the dinos in the school yard as Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen’s loveable, quirky Mine-o-saur comes to life through David Clark’s hilarious illustrations.
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From FUSE #8 (at School Library Journal)
“Books with a message are the most frightening kind of picture book on the planet. They can go real bad, real preachy, and real ugly real fast. Self-published authors love `em. So too do new parents with unshakable beliefs in bibliotherapy. And as a children's librarian it is my job to wade through the lot of them to find the ones that are the best. When a parent walks up to you and says, "I want a picture book about sharing," you know that the clock is ticking and that you need to rustle up the goods right quick or they're going to be convinced that you don't know your Kellogg from your Kuskin. So you search through your library catalog and lo and behold there's a book called, "Mine-o-saur," by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen. You don't know Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen and you certainly don't know illustrator David Clark so already you're up a tree. Still you decide to make a go of it. Leaving your patron at the reference desk you saunter on over to the "B" section of the picture books and surreptitiously flip through the title before returning. Maybe you notice that there are rhyming sections. Hey, fun fact! You know what's even more dangerous than a book with a message? A book with a message that RHYMES. But the parent is looking increasingly impatient, a line is forming behind them, all the other sharing books are out, and this is what's sitting in your hot little hand. Do you risk handing it over or will you regret the action if the book isn't any good? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have excellent news. Ms. Bardhan-Quallen (I just like writing her name) and Mr. Clark have leapt above the double threat of lesson + rhymes to create a book that pans, scans, looks great, and tells its message in a manner pleasing to eye and ear. Plus it's got dinos. Everybody likes dinos...Clark's illustrations were kind of the key here, though. You can have all the nice little words and characters you want but if the pictures look like they were done by someone whose heart wasn't in it, forget about it. That'll show. Mr. Clark, however, appears to care very much about this book. His pictures have a bug-eyed cartoonish look, but with bright watercolor washes and some fine shading. More importantly, there's personality here... It's a fun one. You may prefer your Yolen or other dino tales for the basic manners of life, but when it comes to sharing books, "The Mine-o-saur" ain't half bad. It risks a couple genres and comes out tops. Worth a gander at any rate.”
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