Making Grizzle Grow. Rachna Gilmore. Illustrated by Leslie Elizabeth Watts. Markham, ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2007. 32 pp., hardcover, $19.95. ISBN 978-1-55041-885-9. Subject Heading: Dilophosaurus-Juvenile fiction. Preschool-grade 2 / Ages 4-7. Review by Helen Norrie. **** /4 Reviewed from f&g's.

excerpt:

I make a dinosaur. She's amazing! She has a huge head with sharp, hungry teeth. She's a Dilophosaurus. Her name is Grizzle.

Emily's father sends her outside to play in the snow, but she's upset because he won't join her. She decides to make a dinosaur that will impress her father, but the dinosaur has a voracious appetite. In a fantasy sequence that young children will like, Emily feeds Grizzle pizzas, cheeseburgers, spaghetti and meatballs, roast turkey and many more specialties. Grizzle keeps growing and finally becomes a Tyrannosaurus rex that frightens Emily. But when Emily's dad finally comes outside to admire her work, Emily saves him from her monster creation.

     Young children will enjoy Emily's imaginative efforts to feed her dinosaur and sympathize with her impatience with her busy father. With children's fascination with dinosaurs, they will like watching Grizzle grow from a small Dilophosaurus to a large Allosaurus and finally a huge Tyrannosaurus rex. Finally, Emily decides to make a Brachiosaurus "Because it only eats plants."

      Gilmore is an Ottawa author who was born in India and raised in England. She has won a number of awards for children's literature, including the Governor General's Literary Award. Watts lives in Stratford, ON, and has won the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon award for illustration, among other prizes. The expressions on Watts' characters are especially well done. Readers can immediately see when Emily is angry, impatient, scared and contented. The pictures are over-sized and brimming with primary colours.

Highly Recommended.

Helen Norrie is a former teacher-librarian who writes a regular column on children's books for the Winnipeg Free Press.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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