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Most children love stories about dinosaurs and this book is no exception. This particular book is slightly different in that it goes back to cave man time where animal skins (and not much else) were worn as clothes. Yikes, fancy that!
These skins, though, were not nice and soft and free of vermin, oh no these ones had ticks and fleas and other revolting things like maggots that crawled all over the wearer of the garments.
A little boy called Arg is cold, but not just cold, actually just about freezing. Arg is different than other cave people. He has a lot less hair and is always cold. When cave people get really cold they wear furs – fresh ones from a mastodon. I had to google to find out what a mastodon was – similar to a woolly mammoth, but not the same – but they may have roamed the earth together, according to my source.
Arg has one coat made out of a skin of a sabre-tooth tiger. It was not as warm as mastodon fur but at least this one didn’t have maggots crawling all over it… His sister Hng is not very nice to her brother – most aren’t, but she is meaner than most. She won’t let her poor hairless brother get closer to the fire so poor old Arg is frozen – so cold he thinks his brain may freeze.
Arg keeps Krrk-Krrk, his pet dinosaur, under his coat – but dinosaurs are cold-blooded which makes Arg even colder. Poor Arg!! To make matter worse Krrk-Krrk chucks up a wonderful geyser of vomit which explodes from under Arg’s coat. Being so cold, the vomit freezes.
This is a great story which I know our 3-year-old granddaughter is going to love. Her love of toilet humour and dinosaurs is well known in the family. They eventually grow out of this sort of humour – which to my mind is a bit of a shame!
Reviewed by Christine Frayling
Dinosaur Trouble: The Runaway Coat
by Kyle Mewburn, illustrated by Donovan Bixley
Published by Scholastic NZ
ISBN 9781775433682
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