Book Review | The Voyage of Turtle Rex by Kyle Cyrus

The Voyage of Turtle Rex is a picture book written and illustrated by Kyle Cyrus.

Book Description

Sploosh! Fizz! Swish! The prehistoric ocean is a dangerous place for a baby sea turtle. But after she emerges from her egg, the treacherous waters are her goal. Swimming through the swirling waves and dodging larger sea creatures, she finds a resting place deep below. There she waits, until she grows into the majestic sea turtle that returns to the sand to lay her eggs and begin the cycle again.

This journey of a small creature in the oceanic world of the dinosaurs is a perfect mix of scientific integrity and dramatic storytelling.

Book Review

"Deep in the dunes of a long-ago shore, the leathery shell of a turtle egg tore."

I always love full color, full spread picture books. The Voyage of Turtle Rex has really great artwork. It's pretty dark and even menacing for a picture book, but that's more my cup of tea (and my 6 year old's really) so we loved it.

The Voyage of Turtle Rex is about the life of an Archelon sea turtle and the different dinosaurs she would have encountered along her journey.

This is a great book for kids who love dinosaurs. From the first pages, the sea turtle is on the beach with land dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus Rex. Once she makes it into the ocean she encounters dinosaurs like Mosasaur and Plesiosaur. It's a pretty epic tale that finds her back on the beach laying eggs and showcasing the circle of life.

"A primeval beach was a spine-tingling sight. She hid in the sand. She waited for night . . ."

As moving of a tale as it is, The Voyage of Turtle Rex is also kind of a downer. All of the featured animals are now extinct, and the sea turtles themselves are headed that way thanks to man. It's a realistic view and awareness is important, but it sure can bring down story time.

Even though you might get bummed a bit, The Voyage of Turtle Rex is a great picture book with lots of facts about sea turtles and lots of different dinosaurs to meet along the way. Kyle Cyrus has written and illustrated several other picture books that are definitely going on our to be read list (including Tadpole Rex which looks quite similar to this one).

7/10: Recommended Read

Book Review | Santa Duck by David Milgrim

Santa Duck is a picture book written and illustrated by David Milgrim.

Book Description

Nicholas Duck loves Christmas, and he is happy to try on the new Santa hat that's mysteriously delivered to his house. But when his friends see him and immediately launch into their Christmas lists, he doesn't know what to do . . . until he runs into Santa himself.

I read a lot of Christmas books. My 7 year old brings home at least one Christmas book a week the entire year with the exception of one or two Halloween books that pull him away from all things Christmas. I can say without hesitation: there are a lot of strange Christmas books out there. The Christmas books that usually fall short for me are the ones that suffer from being too original.

David Milgrim's Santa Duck manages to blend cute Christmas traditions with an original story.

In Santa Duck, Nicholas Duck sets out to find Santa before it's too late to submit his Christmas wishlist. As he's heading out he finds a present on his doorstep. "Whoa, baby!" Thus begins the hilarious dialogue in Milgrim's illustrations.

The present contains a Santa coat and hat. At first, Nicholas is very happy to have been given such a wonderful gift.

As Nicholas goes in search of Santa, every animal he sees believes him to be Santa Duck. He becomes increasingly frustrated as each animal recites their long Christmas wishlists.

The genius of this book is the dialogue bubbles between the animals. I wasn't a huge fan of the storyline between Nicholas and Santa. I wanted there to be more of a point as to why Nicholas was chosen to help Santa gather Christmas lists, but the humor amongst the animals more than made up for it. My kids and I had a lot of laughs. Santa Duck also embraces the idea that getting great gifts is awesome.

Even though I categorize Santa Duck with some of the other strange Christmas books we've read, I recommend it for the laughs alone. It's a fun read.

7/10: Recommended Read

Book Review | Frankie Stein by Lola M. Schaefer

Frankie Stein is a picture book written by Lola M. Schaefer and illustrated by Kevan Atteberry.

Book Description

Frankie Stein comes into the world on a bright, sunny day. He’s not at all like his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank N. Stein. They’re scary looking. He’s cute. They try to make him look like them. They can’t. But he does end up being scary—just in his own way! Kevan Atteberry’s digital illustrations lend a hand to this family-friendly story perfect for a Halloween read aloud.

Frankie Stein was my son's library pick this past week. It turned out to be a really cute Halloween read.

Frankie Stein was born into a family with a long history of being scary. Cute little Frankie Stein didn't look scary at all so Mr. and Mrs. Stein set out to help Frankie fit in.

In the end, Frankie turned out to be the scariest Stein of all just by being himself. (As it turns out, hugs and kisses and cuteness will stop a monster right in his tracks!)

The illustrations in Frankie Stein were awesome. I think I'm going to be obsessed with hunting down more Kevan Atteberry books. We are going to have to add this book and Frankie Stein Starts School to our personal Halloween library.

If you are looking for a wonderfully illustrated Halloween book full of monsters, ghosts, and all things spooky without the book actually being spooky (so cute!), Frankie Stein is a perfect fit.

8/10: Great Read

Book Review | Mister Dog by Margaret Wise Brown

Margaret Wise Brown wrote my favorite childhood book Home For a Bunny. She also wrote Goodnight Moon which is one of my favorite books to read to my kids. Surely I would love a book about Mister Dog the pipe smoking dog who belongs to himself!

It turns out Mister Dog is not his name. His name is actually Crispin's Crispian.

His name was Crispin's Crispian because he belonged to himself.

Sure. That makes perfect sense.

This is one odd little book.

He was a funny old dog. He liked Strawberries.

It seems there are people who are against this book due to the pipe smoking and the fact that a little boy goes home with the dog, etc., etc. It's a 1950's Golden Book with a pipe smoking dog. I'm not sure what folks really expect, but I do know that I expected a nice story at the heart of Mister Dog. Unfortunately, this book was a weird mess with one odd event after another.

This evening he made a bone soup with lots of meat in it. He gave some to the boy, and the boy liked it. The boy didn't give Caspian his chop bone, but he put some of his bright green vegetable in the soup.

The writing style changed several times throughout the book which added to the overall strangeness. Here's another odd page for you:

The only way I would recommend Mister Dog is in the "Hey, you want to see a really strange book?" kind of way. I haven't read this to my kids, and I don't plan to. I remember their reaction to But No Elephants. I'm not bringing them down that road again.

2/10: Not Recommended

All I can say is I'm a glutton for punishment. After writing this review I decided I'd try reading Mister Dog to my kids after all. My oldest declared: "That doesn't make any sense." I knew better. I really did.

Book Review | Ducks in Muck

Ducks in Muck is a picture book written by Lori Haskins and illustrated Valeria Petrone.

Book Description

Ducks in muck. Ducks stuck in trucks. Trucks stuck in muck. How will the trucks and ducks get unstuck?

Discover what happens to a group of friendly ducks when they play in the muck and then are taken away in a truck!

Ducks in Muck is a book we have read many times at our house. We have it in board book format so it's an easy to grab and read book for all of my kids.

The appeal of Ducks in Muck is the simplicity. You basically have ducks and trucks stuck in the muck. Once your kids have those words down, the book is all theirs!

The illustrations are wonderful, but sometimes the black text is hard to find and read over the dark background.

There's not much to Ducks in Muck other than getting unstuck from the trucks that are stuck in the muck, but it's a cute book none-the-less.

6/10: Good Read