I Am a Tyrannosaurus

PreS-K—In this reboot of I Am a Backhoe (Tricycle, 2010), a boy describes and acts out different dinosaur behaviors. Two bright spreads of digital illustrations show him moving his whole body as he describes the reptile he has become on the first with the words "I am..." signaling a page turn and the revelation of the creature that matches his imaginings—a tyrannosaurus, followed in turn by a velociraptor, brachiosaurus, triceratops, pteranodon, and "a brand new baby dinosaur." The next spread shows the boy and his mother pretending to be dinosaurs together and describes her actions before revealing that she is a maiasaura—"good mother lizard." While Backhoe was a perfect blend of action words and physical movement, this text spends more time describing the reptiles: "I have a big collar,/and three horns/on my face./I look mean,/but I eat only plants." The boy is full of motion and children can see that he believes he is the dinosaur described, but his movements don't always relate to the text and the dinosaurs sometimes seem like separate objects rather than the projection of the child's imagination. This is a solid offering, but it lacks the originality and imagination of Backhoe.—Anna Haase Krueger, Antigo Public Library, WI