The dinosaur tamer /

Who knew purple, green, and striped dinosaurs in need of taming roamed the Wild West? In true outlaw fashion, there's a showdown between Rocky (a cowboy small-in-stature but larger-than-life), who could rope a Stegosaurus at ninety paces while wearin' a blindfold and eatin' a prickly pear, and the toughest, the most ferocious dinosaur to ever kick dirt: T. Rex. They tussle their way through almost every western state until Rocky gets the upper hand and rides T. Rex off into the sunset. The story centers on the skirmishes between the two, featuring plenty of action in locales as varied as the Olympic Rainforest and the South Dakota Badlands. While the brightly colored dinosaurs are big and have menacing expressions (reminiscent of Mark Teague's dinosaurs in How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?, 2003), they aren't overly scary. The brief text is folksy and fast paced. Pair with other American tall tales such as Swamp Angel by Anne Isaacs (1994) or one of Steven Kellogg's adaptations such as Mike Fink (1992) or Pecos Bill (1986).--Enos, Randall Copyright 2009 Booklist

Greathouse and Shroades's rollicking debut, set "back when the old, old West was still as green as a bristlecone pine and cowboys were as common as warts on a Stegosaurus," introduces pint-sized cowboy Rocky who "teethed on a Deinonychus femur and used an Ankylosaurus tail as a rattle" and specializes in taming dinos of all sizes. Though the book is full of delightful hyperbole and outlandish claims, both author and artist sprinkle it with authentic dinosaur names and features; Shroades uses a palette of fantastical colors for his dinos, as when Rocky ropes a purple and blue stegosaurus "at ninety paces while wearin' a blindfold and eatin' a prickly pear." But trouble surfaces with the arrival of T. Rex the "rip-roarin'est, snip-snortin'est reptilian that ever did stomp the earth." The artist wisely maintains T. Rex's slightly menacing and mischievous expression throughout, even when the tamed beast becomes "as docile as a fresh-hatched platypus pup." Greathouse's humorous tall tale language never falters, and readers will relish cinematic scenes of Rocky and T. Rex tussling, creating several American landmarks in the process. Ages 4-8. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

K-Gr 3-Greathouse uses the Old West as a setting for this tall tale in which a tough little dinosaur-wrangling cowboy meets his match in a T. rex. Rocky lassoes the "rip-roarin'est, snip-snort'est reptilian that ever did stomp the earth," and the creature drags him all over the western half of the country before it is tamed. Shroades's cartoon illustrations convincingly depict the dinosaurs in their Wild West setting. The use of shadow and texture provides the sense of hyperrealism familiar to the post-Toy Story set. While Tamer is a mash-up that flows well as a read-aloud, it is an additional purchase.-Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Greathouse takes readers back to the Really Old West for an outsized dustup between T.Rex, "the rip-roarin'est, snip-snortin'est reptilian that ever did stomp the earth," and young Rocky, a dino tamer able to rope even Stegosaurus with his thousand-foot, crocodile-hide lariat since he was he was "knee-high to a Pterodactyl egg." Schroades depicts the seesaw, continent-spanning contest in suitably big scenes featuring broad, rocky landscapes, plenty of brightly patterned dinos and a grinning, moon-faced lad topped by a notched Stetson. A map that stretches from the Mississippi River to the Pacific is dotted with red T.Rex tracks showing where the battle wended, with such landmarks as the Grand Canyon and Crater Lake (both created in the tussle) marked. By the end Rocky has his new cayuse munching on a zucchini and "docile as a fresh-hatched platypus pup," ready to ride out into cowpoke legend. Yessiree, it's the finest dino-meets-cowboy yarn since Betty G. Birney's Tyrannosaurus Tex, illustrated by John O'Brien (1994). (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.