Rex

In an entertaining tale of prehistoric (adoptive) parenting, James (Nurse Clementine) introduces a “terrifying tyrannosaurus” who loves to harass the local populace: “He scared the stegosaurus. He scared the brontosaurus. He scared every saurus he saw!” One night in his cave, the foreboding dino is awakened by a tiny T. rex who has hatched from an abandoned egg. Having found the large sleeping dinosaur, he speaks his first word: “Dada!” Rex eagerly imitates his new role model, whose iciness begins to melt. But after he bluntly denies paternity (“You know, I’m not really your dad. You found me in a cave”), Rex sets off to discover “where he really belonged.” James’s loose watercolor-and-ink illustrations comically highlight the contrast between the dinosaurs’ sizes and personalities, especially in scenes that show Rex trying to keep up with his adoptive father’s tree-uprooting, boulder-smashing, and dino-scaring. Rex’s night alone in the woods is just scary enough (even herbivores have menacing teeth in James’s world), and the tender closing reunion puts to rest any question of who Rex’s father really is. Ages 2–5. (July)