Oriol Vidal

A family consisting of a mother duck, two ducklings, and a dinosaur go out to find the perfect pumpkin. However, the dinosaur sibling doesn't quite get what the pumpkins are for and keeps accidentally smashing them by doing things like juggling, jumping, and bowling with them.

This book is part of a loose series ("Duck, Duck, Dinosaur"). Perhaps there's an earlier book that explains how the dinosaur ends up as part of the family and perhaps that's better. (I think it could potentially be a useful tale about/for adopted children.) As this stands, children will probably just find it funny that a dinosaur is brother to two ducks.

Personally, I didn't find this book all the interesting. Being an early reader, the language is rather basic. The one duckling annoyingly repeats the last words of the other duckling all the time. It is nice that the mother duck eventually steps in to comfort the dinosaur and allow his mistakes to being beneficial in the end, but it struck me as obnoxious that the whole family just tells the dinosaur what he's doing is wrong without explaining why.

That being said, I could see young children finding the book silly and amusing. It's a decent enough book to add to a collection of autumnal books in a lesson plan for preschoolers through first grade.… (mehr)