Picture Books: Dinosaur Thunder, by Marion Dane Bauer & Alphabatics, by Suse MacDonald

Getting brand new freshly cataloged books into the library is always so nice, and I especially love when the picture books come in.

Dinosaur Thunder
Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine
ISBN: 9780590452960
Pop-art with ragged white highlighted edging shows off the imagination of a young boy scared of thunder.

This one is going on my list of books about storms.  It's nice and short, and has various family-members trying to comfort a small boy by saying comforting cliches about what thunder is - all of which he imagines as still frightening, until his older brother latches on to dinosaurs as the magic imaginary remedy.  Thinking of the thunder as familiar dinosaurs roaring and stomping around makes the boy much less nervous about the earth-shaking thunderous booms of the storm.



Alphabatics
Suse MacDonald
ISBN: 9780027615203
1986 book, Caldecott Honor, re-issue.  Primary colored alphabet letters gradually morph into animals or items in action.

Love the colors in this book, and glad to see a re-issue of it in hardback.  Each letter has a color scheme which takes the original letter through a series of three or four blocks of gradual morphing on one page, into the fully-formed scene on the facing page.   As an illustrative example (not sorry for the pun), the letter J is a lowercase red J in a yellow box.  The next box has the J turned sideways and resting on the floor of the box, and the box is given a "lid" with the inclusion of a simple white line.  Next we have the box-top being slightly pushed open by a multiplicity of Js (now minus their dots), and the final box has the lid fully back, the stack of Js are wobbling slightly, and the dot is on top as a head.  The facing page keeps the red J body and the yellow box, turns the red dots into the corners of a clown's smile, and adds a nicely contrasting turquoise ruffle and hat to the ensemble.

Sadly, this one isn't so good for storytimes, because there's no through-line or any action/dialogue, but I'm glad to have a copy to suggest to parents with kids who enjoy interesting illustrations.  This would be a really interesting teaching tool to pair with a book like Numblers (also by MacDonald) to use in the classroom to help kids visualise numbers and make imaginative connections with them.